When Shashi Bala, the daughter of a farmer in Himachal Pradesh’s Garli village in Kangra district, saw an ad on Facebook for a drone programme, free for women at IIT Mandi, she assumed it was fake. So she cross-checked on another website, found it was correct and promptly signed up. Designed to train women to […]
Brave new world: Skilling women for modern India Read More »
Of course there will be medals. And headliners smashing records and setting new standards. Of course there will be tales of winning and, the vastly more heart-breaking, tales of nearly-winning. Beyond the medals, ranks and records what do these once in four years games represent? Back in Paris after 128 years, this will be the most
At the most gender equal Olympics, women to watch Read More »
Given that it is a project over seven decades in the making and a core promise of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) manifesto, you would imagine that post-Independence India’s first Uniform Civil Code (UCC) would be breathtaking in the scale of its imagination — or at least reflective of Constitutional values of equality and dignity.
A lost opportunity for a forward-looking civil code Read More »
Earlier this week, the ghost of Shah Bano, lurking in the shadows for close to four decades, popped up again. A Supreme Court ruling that all women, including Muslim women who marry under their personal religious law, are entitled to maintenance, once again took on the old question of whether Muslim women can claim maintenance beyond what
The only state in India with a woman chief minister has been grappling with an alarming problem of public vigilantism and moral policing. Earlier this week, a video of a TMC functionary called Tajmul Islam surfaced. In it he can be seen flogging a couple in public in daylight for having an alleged extramarital affair. Shot in
Public vigilantism is alive and shockingly well in West Bengal—and other parts of India Read More »
Even though it happened 20 years ago, Sharif Rangnekar still remembers that assault. The pain, the fear, the shock, the shame. Back then, sex between men was illegal, and there was a whole lot of stigma attached to even talking about it. Moreover, men are supposed to be “big and strong”, so to admit to
Tejbir Singh, 29, the son of a farmer, had been in love for two years with Meena, 28. She was the daughter of his maternal uncle’s brother-in-law, not a blood relation by a mile but still, out of bounds for marriage in Haryana. When the families refused to accept the relationship, Tejbir and Meena decided
When I decided to quit my full-time job with this newspaper and go freelance so that I could spend more time with my then school-going daughters, my father-in-law was appalled. But he didn’t want to directly question my decision and, so, told a friend that he would make sure my children were well looked after
At Delhi’s plush, high gloss marble-floored Garvi Gujarat Bhavan, Geniben Thakor is sitting in her room, her bags packed. She had planned a quick shopping trip before catching a train back home to Banaskantha, Gujarat, but now there’s no time for that and she gamely settles down for a chat. Her hair neatly pulled back,
Iqra Hasan had just completed her master’s degree in international law and politics from London’s School of Oriental and Asian Studies when Covid’s second wave struck and she found herself back home in Kairana, Uttar Pradesh. With a B.A. from the Lady Shri Ram College and a law degree from Delhi University, Iqra had submitted
In the video, Sanjna Jatav is dancing to Rajasthani folk music. Her head is covered but her joy shines through. Shot on June 4, soon after the results were declared, the clip has already gone viral with close to 100,000 views and god only knows how many retweets and forwards. The new Congress representative of
No party can ignore us any longer. That would explain the grand announcements and the lofty promises, from eliminating cervical cancer to job reservations; from unconditional cash transfers to night shelters for migrant women. But what does the just concluded seven phase-long election really tell us about political parties and their stand on gender? I
General Elections 2024: Through a gender lens darkly Read More »