He leadership of a new generation of Dalit women–articulate, clear about strategy, and utterly fearless despite death threats and opposition from groups including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Hindu American Foundation When Indians migrate, they can carry the prejudice of caste with them. The first comprehensive UN report on caste-based discrimination found at least […]
Why Seattle’s new law on caste bias is needed Read More »
Source: medium.com I’ll spare you the graphic details of the abuse and torture of a minor girl by a couple in Gurugram, Manish Khattar and Kamaljeet Kaur. The 17-year-old daughter of Gond tribals had been brought from Simdega, Jharkhand by a placement agency and for the past five months had been caring for the couple’s three-and-a-half year old
when old age still seems a long way off. It’s not like turning 70, where the clock ticking to where we’re all headed must only get louder. It’s that muddled place of no longer middle age, but not quite old age Turning 60 is not like turning 50At 60, you know you’ve lived longer than
Why turning 60 is special in many ways Read More »
Karnataka had a head-start as one of the earliest states, along with Tamil Nadu and Kerala, to have public libraries act. In 2019, it decentralized 5,623 rural libraries and handed them over to the panchayats Across the state, 2.8 million kids now have library cards. Senior citizens, self-help groups, and accredited social health activists are
When libraries become a safe place for children Read More »
Source: PTI That hardy perennial, the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), popping up with regularity ever since it was written as a desirable goal in the Constitution 74 years ago, has in the past few months been gaining traction. A private member’s bill to implement it nationwide was listed for introduction in the Lok Sabha during the Budget
Time to reimagine the Uniform Civil Code? Read More »
On the first day of Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s “complete war” on child marriages, 1,800 people were arrested under provisions of the Prohibition of the Child Marriage act that puts the minimum age of marriage at 18 for women and 21 for men. Those arrested included 52 qazis or priests and many arrests are reported to have
Image source: Google Almost 100 years ago, Sarojini Naidu, one of the 15 women members of the Indian Constituent Assembly and a leading figure of the freedom struggle, asserted she was not a feminist. According to her, to be a feminist is to acknowledge that one is repressed. Hers was a particularly formal and somewhat
Is the Constitution a feminist document? Read More »
Trial by Fire quietly unpeels the dignity and grit of families who should never have had to be so brave but were In 2010, Neelam met with the law commission asking for a separate law for man-made disasters that enhanced jail time from the current two years. A report was prepared in 2012. Then, nothing
A mother’s courageous fight against the system Read More »
Alia Bhatt, Kate Winslet and 12-year-old me facing utter mortification when the pimply boy in my class commented on my “muscular” legs—a stray remark that meant that for years I just couldn’t bring myself to wear dresses and shorts. I was lucky because unlike so many women today, particularly women in the public eye, there
How unrealistic ideals of body image are harming young women’s health Read More »
While details of the assault by a male passenger who urinated on a 70-year-old woman on a New York-Delhi Air India flight are still emerging, there’s news of another incident, also concerning a male passenger, a woman and urine. The first incident took place on November 26, but came to light only recently. The second also took
What explains the shockingly bad behaviour of some Indian male passengers? Read More »
A decade after a brutal gang rape in Delhi led to our toughest laws, the National Crime Records Bureau continues to report an upward trend in crimes against women. The problem is not a lack of laws but sheer callousness when it comes to the lives of women. (Amal KS/Hindustan Times) Barely into the new
Not protection, women need autonomy, equality Read More »