For as long as girls are taught that marriage is their only goal, they must compromise and a bad husband is better than no husband, they will continue to remain in abusive relationships. Until the monstrosity of his alleged crime, Aaftab Poonawala was your average abusive neighbor. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo) When R, then 19, fell in love with a man from another caste, her parents made one thing very clear: She was dead to them.

Credit: HT Print Shraddha Walkar had cut ties with her family when she walked out of home to move in with her boyfriend, Aaftab Poonawala in 2020. When a friend, Lakshman Nadar told her father in mid-September this year that he hadn’t heard from her for months, the father got in touch with the police. It was only then, after interrogation, that Aaftab confessed he had killed Shraddha, cut her body into pieces, stored them in a fridge he purchased for the purpose and then disposed of them bit by bit late at night in the adjoining Mehrauli forest. Friends of the…

At 9.18 pm on February 9, 2012, a 19-year-old woman working with a call centre at Gurugram’s Cyber City got off the bus to walk the remainder of the remaining 10-minute distance home at Chhawla Camp. Suddenly, to the shock of two friends who were walking with her, a red Tata Indica pulled up and dragged her in. On February 13, the police arrested a man called Rahul who confessed to raping and killing the woman along with two other men, Ravi Kumar and Vinod. Based on this confession, the woman’s body was found in a field in Haryana’s Rewari…

For too long, too many of us have remained silent about just what it takes to be an employed mother, believing the lie that if we lean in enough, it will all magically work out. It won’t It won’t. If we want workplaces and society to acknowledge, if not understand, what it takes to be employed, we need to articulate our priorities, instead of hopelessly trying to catch all the balls in the air. (Getty Images/iStockphoto) I am talking to B, a young mother just emerging from the shock and awfulness of Covid-19, working from home, lockdown, online classes, housework,…

Credits: ONMANORAMA In a country where the “motherhood penalty” leads to young mums quitting jobs in droves, one working mother decided to take her three-year-old son with her to a public function to which she had been invited. The valedictory function of a film festival was held on a Sunday, October 30. In the video, Divya Iyer, the district collector of Pathanamthitta district, Kerala can be seen attending with her son. Deputy speaker of the state assembly, Chittayam Gopakumar posted a video on his Facebook page. That video has since been deleted but not before scores of (mostly) men huffed and…

On the 40th day after Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody for being ‘improperly’ veiled, thousands ignored road closures and marched to her grave in Saqez, Iran. The protests are being led by women. They are burning hijabs, cutting their hair, dancing and chanting: “Women, life, freedom”. Despite a brutal crackdown that has, according to one estimate left 222 dead, amongst them women and children, the protests show no sign of abating, spreading instead to alarger group of students and men who are demanding regime-change. Will a country where half the population is aged below 40 force the regime to buckle, or will the state…

I can’t help but wonder at the depths we have plumbed in the decade since the brutality of the December 16, 2012 gang rape led an outraged nation to demand justice, compelling the then Congress-led government to tighten rape laws. Since 2012, violent crimes against women have only gone up, a reflection perhaps of both rising crime and a greater willingness to report it. In the video, the bleeding girl, her hands outstretched, pleads for help. But the men who stand around are far too busy filming the “scene”, until Manoj Pandey, the policeman in charge of the Kannauj outpost,…

In the rampage that followed the 2017 conviction of Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim for murder and rape, 30 people were killed, 200 injured and vehicles and public property were set on fire as his followers clashed with police. Rahim had been sentenced to 20 years of hard labour. In the five years since he’s been lodged in Sunaria prison, he’s been sent home on parole or furlough at least six times. His time-out has coincided with elections in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh where he continues to wield extraordinary influence amongst an estimated 70 million followers, claimed by DSS.…

No matter what he does, film, ad or a talk about intolerance in India, Aamir Khan has long been a red flag to the Rightwing ecosystem. The latest furor comes over an ad that follows a story line where it’s not the bride, but the bridegroom (played Khan) who enters his wife’s home. The outrage has followed predictable lines, Khan is anti-Hindu, why doesn’t he condemn polygamy etc etc. The ad comes days after Khan’s latest film Laal Singh Chaddha flopped following a boycott call issued for the same reasons mentioned above, though how much of its fate was influenced by the boycott or just…

The hijab row is now headed to a larger Supreme Court bench and all eyes will be on the Chief Justice of India. The composition of this bench will be crucial to determine what is at heart a simple question: Do India’s women have the right to choose? Justice Shudhanshu Dhulia’s dissenting opinion trends towards this option (though, of course, karva chauth is not part of his remit). “It is a matter of choice, nothing more and nothing less,” he ruled. The thing which was uppermost in [my] mind was the education of girl child…. Are we making her life…

The Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion as a right available to all women regardless of their marital status is creating a stir – and, for once, it’s for all the right reasons. The ruling, passed by a three-judge bench of justices D.Y. Chandrachud, A S Bopanna and J B Pardiwala, “can inspire new benchmarks on reproductive rights around the world,” said Human Rights Watch. A ‘very progressive judgment’ that addresses many of the anomalies in the existing medical termination of abortion rules, said Dr Nikhil Datar, a gynaecologist who has since 2008 helped at least 300 women approach the courts to terminate…

The choice between the right to education and allowing girls to wear a headscarf with their uniforms is a no-brainer. The girls must be allowed their fundamental right to expression, privacy, and autonomy. There is no contradiction. The fundamental point in both countries is a woman’s right to choose. In Iran, the extraordinary sight of women dancing, singing, and chanting as they toss their headscarves, or hijabs, into bonfires. In India, the extraordinary sight of girls waiting to be admitted into their classrooms as they sit in silent protest outside in their hijabs. Commentators on social media have pointed to the seeming…