Few other budgets in recent memory have been quite as sweeping in terms of its reference to women and gender. The comparison was inevitable: Rs.200 crore for a statue of Sardar Patel, but only Rs.100 crore for the girl child through a Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao awareness campaign, which will include courses on gender mainstreaming in school curricula. “NDA […]
Budget 2014: A cautious start on gender inclusivity Read More »
Through the 1980s when dowry deaths were routinely passed off as kitchen accidents, Satya Rani Chadha was the face of the anti-dowry movement. To a generation of connected, social media-savvy users, Satya Rani Chadha will not be a familiar name. But this was the name that launched the anti-dowry movement in Delhi and across India.
Satya Rani Chadha: The face of India’s anti-dowry movement Read More »
Pal’s statements are in a whole new league: For the first time, an elected MP has on camera actually threatened rape as a form of political retribution. Insensitive, ignorant statements about women by Indian politicians are now, sadly, commonplace. Even so, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Tapas Pal’s remarks, caught on camera in an undated video, mark
Tapas Pal and the language of hate Read More »
Across India, millions of women and girls either wake up well before dawn or wait until late at night to use the open fields that function as their toilet. New Delhi: Under cover of a hot night in May in Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun district, two teenage cousins stepped out to do what millions of girls and
Toilets at home will not stop rapes, but can reduce risks Read More »
Chanted as a mantra by nearly all parties, but always preceded by other priorities, the issue has so far failed to translate into political reality. India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking for a big idea, he might want to look no further than women’s empowerment. Chanted like a mantra by nearly every political party in
A big idea for Modi: women’s empowerment Read More »
Physician, writer and avowed communist, Rashid Jahan was an inspiration for young Muslim women. Woman of fire In the winter of 1932, three men and a woman published a collection of short stories and sparked a literary storm. Sajjad Zaheer, Ahmad Ali, Sahibzada Mahmuduzaffar and the woman, Rashid Jahan, were writing an angry book, Angarey (embers) that railed against social inequity, hypocritical maulvis and
Book Review | A Rebel And Her Cause Read More »
Women candidates account for a paltry 8% of the total tickets distributed in the first 7 phases of the election. Despite all the talk of the need for greater representation and women’s empowerment by major political parties, women candidates account for a paltry 8% of the total tickets distributed, according to data released by the
Women get a raw deal from parties in ticket distribution Read More »
Compared to the geeky earnestness of her brother, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is a star. Her belated entry will not stop a likely UPA defeat, but you have to credit her with putting up a fight. If the Congress campaign suddenly seems to have shifted to a more combative mode, it has one woman to thank
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is a charismatic enigma Read More »
73 farmers in Marathwada have killed themselves after a freak hailstorm ruined their crops, and the number is mounting. Aurangabad: Dattu Narayan Shewale looked at the hailstones that submerged his crop of onion. Wordlessly he returned home and told his wife that their crop had been destroyed. He made a list of all the people he
Death and despair in hailstorm-hit Marathwada Read More »
A recent survey found that security and empowerment of women was tenth most important in a list of 30 election issues. New Delhi: Who would have imagined that the roar of the angry crowds at India Gate in December 2012 would echo all the way to the general elections 18 months later? Who could have predicted
Political parties yet to move beyond symbols on women’s empowerment Read More »
States with the best sex ratios, gender indices elect the fewest women to Parliament. New Delhi: States with the best sex ratios and gender indices elect the fewest women to Parliament, finds a study conducted for Mint by IndiaSpend.com, a data journalism initiative. Conversely, states with poorer gender indices have the highest percentage of women Members of Parliament (MPs).
‘Empowered’ states have fewer women MPs Read More »
A slim optimism lies in the start to a conversation of a changed India, an India where women outnumbered men as voters in all five of the recently held assembly elections. A slim optimism lies in the start to a conversation of a changed India, an India where women outnumbered men as voters in all
A very tiny stepping stone Read More »