Month: January 2014

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Law intern case: Original petitioners in Vishaka case approach SC

The petition filed by the woman lawyer seeks the establishment of a ‘permanent mechanism’ to look into complaints against judicial officers.

New Delhi: The four original petitioners in the Supreme Court’s landmark Vishaka judgment have asked the court to include them in the ongoing sexual harassment case filed by a woman lawyer against a former Supreme Court judge.

The judge, who has obtained a Delhi high court injunction against reporting of the case, was a sitting Supreme Court judge and the lawyer was his intern when she says the encounter took place in May 2011. The Supreme Court is currently hearing the lawyer’s petition and has issued notices to the former judge, the centre and the attorney general. Continue reading “Law intern case: Original petitioners in Vishaka case approach SC”

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Time to say ‘enough’ to sexual harassment

Men say they are scared by this new environment. Far too many women have lived in fear of the old environment. It’s time to pack the dinosaurs off to the museum.

I hear a great lament these days.

Aggressive women are killing romance in the workplace with their flurry of complaints (young corporate executive)

Come on. He put his hand on her back. And that’s sexual harassment? (older lawyer)

Really? You can just name and shame a senior judge and damn his reputation forever? (even older lawyer)

Farooq Abdullah’s fatuous comment — “I’m scared to talk to women these days,” – caused such an uproar that he was forced to apologise. Yet, his comments are finding resonance amongst a growing group of entitled men: Women are going too far. Continue reading “Time to say ‘enough’ to sexual harassment”

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Gloria Steinem | The galvanizer

Gloria Steinem, one of feminism’s most influential voices, on the state of the women’s movement, and her enduring connection with India.

I am putting together Gloria Steinem’s first-ever pani-puri, and a great deal of care has gone into its making: cracking the puri, stuffing the filling and adding the chutneys with what I can only hope is a judicious mix of spicy and tangy. The tapering fingers on a hand that proudly bears the vestiges of a hard, long battle—age spots and veins that stand out with startling clarity, allowing for the adornment of a single, silver ring—pick up the pani-puri and she’s about to pop it into her mouth when she’s interrupted by an admirer who stops by our table to say hello.

At 79, Steinem remains feminism’s most influential voice. A person who, in the words of history professor Christine Stansell, is “to the women’s movement what Martin Luther King Jr was to civil rights: the galvanizer”. Continue reading “Gloria Steinem | The galvanizer”