Iceland still #1 for women. India at 127

(Source: UNICEF) India’s improvement by eight places, or 1.4 percentage points, to 127 out of 146 countries is a result mainly of the recognition by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which conducts the annual rankings, of women’s participation in local governance where 33% of seats (50% in some states) are reserved for women. Last year, India had ranked 135. This year it continues to lag behind its neighbours Bangladesh (59), Bhutan (103), Sri Lanka (115) and Nepal (116). Pakistan comes in pretty much at the bottom at 142. The WEF gender ranking of countries is based on four parameters: Economic participation, education,…

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How India’s raja betas are using weaponised incompetence to wriggle out of housework

I am on the phone with the wife of one of my oldest friends, let’s call her ‘A’. It’s April 2020, I remember this because we’re marooned in our homes (and we’re the lucky ones who aren’t trudging back home on foot) just days into the nationwide lockdown that began on March 24. ‘A’ tells me she’s doing it all, the cooking, the cleaning, the washing—while working from home. I get on the phone with her husband my pal and yell at him. Surely he can make the bed and wash his clothes (and his wife’s too)? You Should Have…

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What does it take to take down patriarchy?

The question to ask five months after India’s most celebrated wrestlers began their unprecedented protest is: What does it take to ensure justice for women? What does it take to ensure justice for women?(Hindustan Times) Perhaps the question to ask now, five months after India’s most celebrated wrestlers began their unprecedented protest against Wrestling India Federation head Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, is this: What does it take to ensure justice for women? Let’s be clear, justice for the wrestlers, if it comes at all, is still a long way off. Brij Bhushan, a six-time Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament…

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Murder in public view: Five questions

The stabbing and bludgeoning to death (I’ll spare you the details) on Sunday night of Sakshi, a 16-year-old girl in Delhi’s Shahbad Dairy, allegedly by 20-year-old Sahil Khan, a man she had earlier been in a relationship with, raises many, many disturbing questions. Chief amongst these is: What could possibly breed this level of rage and violence against a young girl and that too by a man personally known to her? Security officers outside the residence of the 16-year-old girl who was stabbed to death at Shahbad Dairy in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Source: HT) The girl reportedly told Sahil…

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India must stop living in denial

In today’s connected world where figures, images and voices are a click of the mouse away, do we really expect the world to believe that India is all malls, highways and high-rises. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image Of all the madcap ideas to come out of the Commonwealth Games, possibly the worst is the one to hide away the city’s beggars. Here’s why. Newspapers have been reporting that many beggars have either been arrested or forced off the streets. Unsightly slums are being hidden behind banners of Shera, our ironically chosen mascot whose big smile surely belies his endangered status.…

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The irresistible charm of solo travel

At 60 she learned to cycle. At 62 she became a long distance runner, running 50 km+ distances. And at 64, she took her first solo holiday to Kashmir. Pushpa Bhatt, now 67, says she has a “good 25 years ahead” to go to places she’s never been. In the past, she’s travelled alone on work trips or with her daughter or in groups. But now the single mother who’s worked hard and invested wisely, has her priorities sorted—like running 72 km through the Khardung La mountain pass in Ladakh last year with plans to run again this September. Representational…

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Freewheeling women

Can we reimagine ways in which the humble bicycle can improve mobility for older women? India’s heaving metropolises are simply not designed for women. The focus on multi-lane highways and flyovers ignores women—and the differently abled and elderly. The metro rail does provide a speedy commute; what’s lacking is last-mile connectivity and affordability (HT PHOTO) As she wheels her cycle out to get to work, Tara ignores the sniggers from neighbours in the densely populated locality of Delhi’s Neb Sarai where she lives. “Is this any age to be on a cycle?” they scoff. The 40-year-old mother of two, who…

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The mystery of the girls who go missing

(Source: Amazon Prime) Perhaps the only thing more chilling than the fact that so many girls have gone missing from their homes in the TV series Dahaad is the utter indifference of their own families. There is a complete lack of curiosity about their whereabouts and well-being. Why? Because “she-ran-away-and-brought-dishonour-to-the-family-name-so-she’s-dead-to-us”. Written by Reema Kagti, Zoya Akhtar and Ritesh Shah and starring Sonakshi Sinha as Anjali Bhaati, a sub-inspector at Mandawa police station in Rajasthan, the series on Amazon Prime subtly unpeels so many aspects of everyday patriarchy: The idea of honour vested in the family’s women, attitudes towards employed women, caste, arranged…

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The survivor’s tale: The unacceptable price of justice

The 36-year-old rape survivor in the Muzaffarnagar riots. (Image Source:Raj K Raj/HT Photo) When the riots broke out in her village in Muzaffarnagar that day on September 8, 2013, her husband had taken their elder son who had a fever to the hospital at Shamli. She was alone at home with their three-month old baby boy. As the rioters approached, she escaped through the back door, clutching her baby, running, running, running through the sugarcane fields, ignoring the cuts made by the sharp leaves. When she stopped for breath, she could see the road ahead. Then the men caught her. Afterwards…

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The wrestlers’ protests can save the akhada

In the patriarchal dustbowl of India, sport has been the key to transforming the lives of girls. Now, a generation of girls stands to lose what their predecessors laid out for them A prolonged protest could derail the progress of the past few years. The website Scroll reports that the wrestlers’ agitation has already resulted in many budding female wrestlers rethinking their careers. A whole generation of girls in sport stand to lose what their predecessors laid out, despite the challenges, for them. (ANI) It’s a question the women wrestlers do not want to consider: What if you lose? “But…

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Marriage on our minds

For some weeks now, India’s top court has had marriage on its mind. One five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud is hearing why the LGBTQI+ community should be (or should definitely not be, depending on your perspective) granted marriage rights at par with other citizens. Another five-judge bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishen Kaul—who is also on the marriage equality bench—looked at easier ways to end a marriage. And the week ended with the top court saying it would look at divorce under Muslim personal law. The second one first. The no-fault, no-wait divorce On Monday, Justice Kaul’s…

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Battling the Bahubali muscle: women’s struggle for justice against powerful politicians

The wrestlers are strong, articulate, disciplined winners who’ve travelled all over the world and are public figures in their own right. Yet even they had to knock on the Supreme Court’s doors for the most basic demand of getting the police to do their job and lodge an FIR (first information report). On April 21, seven women wrestlers went to Delhi’s Connaught Place police to file a complaint against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a six-time BJP MP who heads the Wrestling Federation of India (what skill politicians bring to sporting bodies is a question for another day). The police shooed…

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