How a digital platform in Bundelkhand is telling the story of rural India through a feminist lens. The Khabar Lahariya logo At Hathras, a gaggle of media and OB vans has descended on the house gutted by tragedy. Reporting from the scene, Khabar Lahariya’s editor Kavita Bundelkhandi and reporter Meera Devi have clambered up onto the roof to take a look. What they see is swarms of police and a media melee where excitable reporters who’ve taken over the house, chatter, laugh, eat biscuits, and, every now and then, shriek into their mikes. “The family is pleading that they have…

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 rape survivors to compromise, a legal system that exhausts the patience of the most stoic victim, and a media that finds no merit in these stories.(PTI) Two nine-year-olds were fighting over something inconsequential in district Patna, Bihar. As the fight showed no sign of flagging,…

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. Courtesy: The Indian Express In October last year soon after ‘S’ informed the district magistrate’s office in Lucknow that she wanted to get married under the Special Marriage Act (SMA), she received an unexpected invitation at home: to visit the local police station. The police met her, her partner and her father to conduct an ‘inquiry’. Why get married in court? Was the…

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 sections of the judiciary, is not prepared to grant daughters independence. Not when it comes to their choice of partner(Vipin Kumar/HT PHOTO) In October last year, soon after S informed the district magistrate’s office in Lucknow that she wanted to get married under the Special…

The spike in child marriage, a side-effect of the pandemic, threatens to reverse gains by years of activism. But a government proposal to raise minimum age to 21 for girls is not going to solve the problem, I write in Hindustan Times Photo courtesy: TheBetterIndia Gita got married when she was 12 but, like most married girls in her village in Rajasthan, continued to live with her parents and go to school. Her gauna — a ceremony when the bride moves to her marital home — would happen years later. But when the lockdown began, her family decided it was…

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 her parents and go to school. Her gauna, when the bride moves to her marital home, would happen years later. But when the lockdown began, her family decided it was time. Gita, on the verge of completing secondary school, was dispatched to her husband’s home.…

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 activist (Asha) worker, her days would start at 7 am, distributing supplements to pregnant women, taking them for check-ups and to give birth in hospitals, tracking their children’s weight and immunisation, even advising young wives about contraception. Then the coronavirus struck and “hard work” took…

India’s army of community health workers, the one million Asha workers and 1.3 million anganwadi workers, are invisibilised despite the critical role they play in fighting Covid-19 Courtesy: Behanbox Sunita Rani knows the meaning of hard work. As an Asha — the acronym stands for accredited social health activist — her days used to start at 7 am: distributing supplements to pregnant women, taking them for check-ups and to give birth in hospitals, tracking their children’s weight and vaccination records, even advising young wives about contraception. “You had to be on call day and night. You never knew when you…

In defining ‘cruelty’ in divorce cases—wives who don’t wear a mangalsutra or prioritise careers or want to live separately from their in-laws or do not make tea—Indian courts often fall back on stereotypes of the role of wives in marriage. My report with Surbhi Karwa for Article14. Illustration: Tara Anand for Article14 Momita was visiting her grandmother at 7 pm on 13 January 2018 when Alamin Miah dropped by and asked her to step outside. Then, he threw acid on her face. The attack left her with third-degree burns on her forehead and eyelids and second-degree deep burns on her…

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 she had been accepted to a nine-month leadership training programme in Washington, DC. She had every reason to be proud. It was a competitive programme and she had completed her schooling under challenging circumstances. Then the coronavirus disease paralysed the world, and the training programme…

The lockdown and social distancing measures have pushed India’s sex workers to the edge Pic courtesy: International Women’s Health Coalition/Creative Commons In March, Jayashree Patil learned that she had been accepted to a nine-month leadership training programme in Washington, D.C. She had every reason to be proud. It was a competitive programme and she had completed her schooling under extremely challenging circumstances. Then coronavirus paralysed the world, and the training programme was deferred by a year. Jayashree, the daughter of a sex worker born and raised in Mumbai’s red-light district, Kamathipura, was devastated. “I can’t wait for a year,” she…

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, there is a raging storm over sexism, casteism, colourism and other isms. As Netflix’s eight-episode reality show, Indian Matchmaking (IM) kicks off, the conversation about the business of arranged marriages has gathered pace. IM doesn’t claim a reformist cloak. Executive producer Smriti Mundhra calls it an “unscripted, fun, crazy,…