Extending paid maternity leave from three to six months reinforces the same old patriarchal ideas about women’s ‘work’. American progressives often bemoan the country’s lack of maternity leave, but in India, the problem may be too much time off, not too little. As many as 12 million Indian women could lose their jobs next year thanks to a new law that mandates employers must allow 26 weeks paid time off after giving birth. There have been worries about the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act since it was passed in March 2017, bumping paid leave up from the previous 12 weeks and…

Frankly, I find this business of ranking ‘worst’ countries to be tedious. To be bad is bad enough; better or worse is an academic argument Women protest against rape in New Delhi. A Thomson Reuters yearly survey called India as the most dangerous place for women, which the government rejected saying it’s an opinion poll.(HT) That report, the one that damns India as the worst country in the world for women, came out in a week when one of the country’s most powerful women, our external affairs minister, was being trolled for transferring a passport official who had allegedly exceeded…

In Hindustan Times: Frankly, I find this business of ranking ‘worst’ countries to be tedious. To be bad is bad enough; better or worse is an academic argument. That report, the one that damns India as the worst country in the world for women, came out in a week when one of the country’s most powerful women, our external affairs minister, was being trolled for transferring a passport official who had allegedly exceeded his brief over an interfaith marriage. Of course, we’d like to believe that our women and girls are completely in charge of their lives — in charge…

Section 377 is wrong not because it conforms to outdated notions of family or religion or what is ‘natural’. It is wrong because it is the most blatant violation of human rights. Students from Delhi University , the AUD Queer Collective and Jawahar Lal Nehru University at a protest against campus violence against LGBTQ.(Hindustan Times) When Padma Iyer’s son, Harish, told her he was gay in the early 2000s, LGBTQ was a jumble of letters that meant nothing to the conservative Tamil mom. But she remembers telling him, “Don’t tell your father, and don’t let the relatives know.” She says:…

Atul Kochhar is the symbol of a far more widespread problem – the normalization of prejudice against Muslims. People offer namaz out side the Bandra ststion on the occasion of Eid – al – Fitr in Mumbai on June 16.(HT Photo) I run into my college friend after a gap of some years. Post the usual small-talk, she wants to know my views on the tolerance/intolerance debate. I tell her I am worried about the erosion of this country’s social fabric in recent years. Elaborate, she says. Muslims, I tell her, at least the ones I speak to, are scared…

In Hindustan Times: Atul Kochhar is the symbol of a far more widespread problem – the normalization of prejudice against Muslims. I run into my college friend after a gap of some years. Post the usual small-talk, she wants to know my views on the tolerance/intolerance debate. I tell her I am worried about the erosion of this country’s social fabric in recent years. Elaborate, she says. Muslims, I tell her, at least the ones I speak to, are scared of living in this new India. They worry that they are being watched all the time. They worry that the…

On Scroll.in: Fake news, paid news, biases and slants are so routine that far too many people nod in agreement when journalists are called ‘presstitutes’. There was no eureka moment that led me to journalism, but one image remains stuck in my head. In my MA final year, I see him outside the principal’s office at St Stephen’s College. Is he there for an appointment? No words are exchanged and I only see him, head bent, pen in hand, writing in his notebook – Arun Shourie waiting without fuss or signs of entitlement. The image of the journalist as crusader was…

In Hindustan Times: I argue that Section 377, which criminalises sex against ‘the order of nature’, should be scrapped because it is past its use-by date, conforms to outdated values of marriage and family and is a blatant violation of human rights.  When Padma Iyer’s son, Harish, told her he was gay in the early 2000s, LGBTQ was a jumble of letters that meant nothing to the conservative Tamil mom. But she remembers telling him, “Don’t tell your father, and don’t let the relatives know.” She says: “My instinct was to protect him. I could accept him but was afraid…

On any given day, there are eight to 10 brain dead people in ICUs across India. One donor can save up to seven lives, according to data by Fortis Organ Retrieval and Transplant. Yet, five lakh people in India die every year due to the non-availability of organs. On any given day, there are eight to 10 brain dead people in ICUs across India, according to data from Fortis Organ Retrieval and Transplant.. One donor can save up to seven lives, the data says.(Hindustan Times) In the video on his mother’s phone, Arjun Shamat is dancing with his youngest sister;…

In Hindustan Times: On any given day, there are up to 10 brain dead people in ICUs across India. One donor can save up to seven lives. Yet, five lakh people die every year because organs simply aren’t available In the video on his mother’s phone, Arjun Shamat is dancing with his youngest sister; just another kid goofing off. Who could have known then that a few months later he would be dead? “He never left home without informing me,” says Raj Kumari, his mother, a domestic worker. But a friend called, “Let’s go for a ride”. A short while…

In IndiaSpend: Anti-trafficking activist Sunitha Krishnan, one of three finalists for the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity spoke to me on sex slavery, rehabilitating victims of sex trafficking and death for raping children. New Delhi: She’s dodged an acid attack, had a fatwa issued against her and survived 17 separate physical assaults. But Sunitha Krishnan, 46, doesn’t seem to be the sort of person to be easily disheartened. The founder of Prajwala, an organisation that describes itself as a “pioneering anti-trafficking organisation working on the issue of sex trafficking and sex crime”, has just been chosen as one of three finalists for the…

In response to public outrage against a spate of reported rapes of children, the government has now brought in an ordinance that imposes death to anyone convicted of raping a girl below 11. Why I think this ordinance won’t work, and what I think will. The remarkable fact about recent Indian law-making, particularly when it comes to crimes against women, is that it seems to be based entirely on public emotion. Public anger against the gang-rape of a physiotherapy student in December 2012 led to tough new amendments to the law against sexual violence. It was public anger again –…