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This week saw child marriage back in the news. This and the Bombay High Court’s new guidelines on sexual harassment at the workplace are worrying developments. Child marriage is India’s enduring shame and we are home to the largest number of child brides in the world, with 1.5 million girls under 18 married every year, […]

In India and parts of the world, women have had reason to celebrate this week. But systemic gender issues in a largely patriarchal society remain As of January 2019, women make up 3.8% of the Indian Army, billed as the second-largest in the world. (Hindustan Times) For 67 years, the National Defence Academy (NDA) has

MeToo has a powerful message for women too, that of solidarity and a continuum. Feminist organising goes back to the reform movements of the 19th century. It has not always been united but we have seen its effectiveness through the anti-rape and anti-dowry movements of the 1970s and 1980s to the anti-rape upsurge in 2012.

Music was an act of resistance for the girls in Afghanistan’s first all-women orchestra. Some managed to leave the country, but others lie low, their future uncertain, as they await clarity from the Taliban Zohra, Afghan women’s orchestra, performs during the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi, in 2017. (HT Archive) When she came

A world that comprises diverse human beings across religion, caste, gender, class, geography, ideology, cannot be governed by a singular set of upper class, dominant caste, majority religion men The photograph also acknowledges a new generation of women who are aspirational, driven and, given the opportunity, as likely to succeed as men. We have just

When the State plans laws to punish parents who cross the two-child limit, let’s be clear about who pays the highest price. It’s women, the poorest and most marginalised PREMIUMRepresentational image. (Getty Images/iStockphoto) What’s not to love about a chota parivaar, that quintessential Indian family of parents and their two children? Fewer children mean better

Behind the glitter of the medals lies a story of personal grit. Poverty and marginalisation cut across gender, but women face special discrimination that ranges from fighting to be born to being allowed to play a sport Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu arrives at the airport in New Delhi, on July 26. (File photo) The first went

Simone Biles might have just made it that much easier for young women everywhere. Her decision to pull out of the Olympics tells girls that they matter, their voices are important, and that it’s okay to put themselves first Biles’s decision to pull out of the Olympics does more than shine a welcome spotlight on

The Pegasus revelation must be probed to reassure half this country’s citizens that justice is our constitutional right; that there is zero tolerance for the abuse of power; that we are not wrong to repose our faith in our highest court Representational image. (Getty Images/iStockphoto) At the height of the 2019 sexual harassment scandal involving

An examination of 40,000 marriages in rural India between 1960 and 2008 by a World Bank report finds that dowry’s taint has spread amongst Sikhs and Christians who now have higher average dowries than Hindus and Muslims Representational image. Three deaths, 10 days, 60 years of an anti-dowry law. Cold numbers that tell you not

When the pujari (priest) at the Durga temple in Madurai fell ill and could no longer perform the ritual pujas, his only child, a daughter, Pinniyakkal, stepped up. Two years later, when he died in 2006, she staked her claim to be the full-time pujari, a hereditary position at that temple Representational Image. (HT archive)

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights says 3,621 children have been orphaned since the start of the pandemic. With over 360,000 deaths so far, this is likely an underestimation Representational image. (AP) It started with a WhatsApp message. “A 2 months old baby boy and a 2 yrs old baby girl [sic] need