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It’s the job of institutions and government to provide infrastructure. We need a coherent policy tailored to specific regions and needs that will look at the complexities of online learning. It’s the job of institutions and government to provide infrastructure. We need a coherent policy tailored to specific regions and needs that will look at […]

In India, there’s no one-size-fits-all coming out story. While some members of the LGBTQI community are lucky to have supportive families, others pay a heavy price In a society where the Indian Psychiatric Association clarified only as recently as 2018 that homosexuality is not a mental illness, where there is as yet no explicit ban

India’s #MeToo movement left out the voices of 195 million women in the informal sector Many women employed in the informal sector have normalised sexual harassment as one of the many workplace hazards. Like their counterparts in the formal sector, they don’t speak up because they are either unaware of their legal rights, scared of

Khabar Lahariya, a women-led digital platform that today counts 30 reporters and stringers across 13 districts in Bundelkhand has, for close to two decades, been chronicling a side of India that is seldom written about. “The family is pleading that they have no strength to speak but the media has not stopped thrusting mics into

To say don’t make the Hathras incident about caste is ignorance and privilege. But the systemic oppression of Dalit women isn’t new The outrage over Hathras is justified and necessary. But there is nothing new about the systemic oppression of Dalit women aided by State-backed institutions: The police who won’t file FIRs, lawyers who urge

Couples who wish to marry under the Special Marriage Act must serve a 30-day notice during which their personal details are on public display. This violates their privacy and leaves many vulnerable to parental and community reprisal Hadiya’s marriage was eventually restored by the SC, but serves as a cautionary reminder that Indian society, including

There has been a surge in child marriage, a side-effect of the pandemic. But to reduce child marriage at any time, expand opportunities in education and work, rather than increase minimum age of marriage Gita got married when she was 12 but, like most married girls in her village in Rajasthan, continued to live with

India’s army of community health workers feels invisibilised despite the critical role they play in fighting Covid-19 On August 7, 600,000 Ashas and 100,000 anganwadi workers went on strike across India. Their demands: Better pay, health insurance and protective gear(Yogendra Kumar/HT PHOTO) Sunita Rani knows the meaning of hard work. As an accredited social health

There are 6,57,800 sex workers in India, according to a 2016 UNAIDS study. Other estimates put the number at three million. The lockdown and social distancing measures have pushed them to the edge. NGO workers hand over dry ration to sex workers, Pune , June 23, 2020(Ravindra Joshi/HT PHOTO) In March, Jayashree Patil learned that

Arranged or otherwise, marriage in modern India continues to be bound by rigid social-economic-caste structures While marriage remains an inevitable goal in most societies and certainly in our own, a new generation of Indian women is changing the rules(Shutterstock) One critic calls it “this year’s scariest horror show about arranged marriages”. And on social media,

Gendered language is not just an annoyance. It can harm Facebook’s 71 gender options, including the two-spirit person, are a stretch. But “they”, used by singular non-binary gender identity people, was Merriam-Webster’s word of 2019 and India has recognised “other” as an official gender since 2014(Shutterstock) Last week, my friend Kanta Singh took issue with

The risk of girls dropping out of school in large numbers is real. The time to act, plan and stop a predictable slide is now. In India, 320 million children have been affected by school closures caused by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). Online classes do not factor in the country’s digital divide where 16% females