Namita Bhandare

To understand how sticky attitudes to women in public life can be, you have only to look at Nagaland. In many aspects, the north-eastern state does very well for women: lowest crimes against women; child marriage is virtually unknown (this is true not just for Nagaland but pretty much all of the northeast); and, at 76.11%, female literacy is

In her first summer break home from the American university where she was studying, K* sought an appointment with a gynaecologist to understand why her periods were irregular. Unlike many doctors, this one skipped the euphemistic are-you-married question and asked directly: “Are you sexually active?” Ok, thought K, so far, so good. Then came the

Surabhi Yadav/women_at_leisure Sometimes they eat mangoes, in other places they chit-chat while cutting grass. Some lie on cool floors on hot summer days as they scroll through their phones, others have their hair oiled. There’s napping. A lot of it. What does women’s leisure look like? When Surabhi Yadav got on to Instagram in 2018

Few would have heard of the 64-year-old Droupadi Murmu before the BJP announced her name as the NDA’s nominee for president of India. But few have been able to ignore the symbolism of her candidature. When she is elected on July 18, she will become India’s first tribal (and second woman) president. It’s a done

The woman in the purple sari climbs one agonising step after another, scaling up the wall of the well. At its bottom, another woman scoops a few cups of water into her bucket. This will then be hoisted by ropes by people waiting above, while she will clamber up the same perilous route, using iron

By Saurabh Kirpal The summer of ’69, as the song by Bryan Adams proclaims, were the best days of his life. Sadly, life wasn’t quite as good for the LGBTQI+ community in the June of that year when, faced with consistent police brutality, riots broke outside the iconic Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New

The seven member jury, two women and five men, in a Virginia courtroom has reached a verdict after a six-week trial. Both actors are liable for defamation but Depp has been awarded a significantly higher amount of US$15 million (reduced to $10.35 million to conform with Virginia law) to Heard’s $2 million. Heard has said

Declaring that the ‘basic protection of human decency and dignity extends to sex workers and their children’, a three-judge Supreme Court bench of Justices L. Nageshwar Rao, B.R. Gavai and A.S. Bopanna has made a slew of recommendations to protect these rights. Beyond the recommendations, is the unequivocal recognition of adult sex workers as equal citizens deserving

On the night of November 27, 2019, a 26-year-old veterinary assistant surgeon working at a state-run hospital was returning home in Shamshabad, Telangana when she called her sister at 9.22 pm to tell her that her two-wheeler scooter had a flat tyre. She was scared, she told her sister. That was the last time anyone