A year of loss and devastation still managed to have its undeniable hurrahs. More women judges in the higher judiciary, and the Delhi High Court, set to welcome its first openly gay judge, were a win for wider representation
In the end, it wasn’t institutions so much as women themselves who raised the greater cheers. Lovlina Borghain, Mirabai Chanu, and PV Sindhu went to the Olympics and showed what women are made of. (Getty Images)
As the year came to an end, the flight out of Kabul brought the last remaining students of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, including its famed all-women Zohra orchestra, to safety in Lisbon on December 13. Through five airlifts that had begun in October, the 273 students, teachers, and their families were evacuated in what a spokesperson calls “the largest rescue of a self-contained Afghan community” since the Taliban takeover. In the New Year, they will rebuild their music school under the supervision of their founder, Ahmad Sarmast.