We need to stop apologising and start acknowledging that English is now our language, adding to a rich profusion of the languages we already own. Narendra Modi’s address in English at the recent PSLV launch at Sriharikota has, predictably, led to some raised eyebrows. A political decision, say some. He wanted to show the world he is comfortable with English despite his government’s promotion of Hindi, say others. Both views miss the point. And it is this: Hindi is great, but is English really a foreign language any longer? And can the two co-exist, like chowmein-stuffed samosas or biryani-filled pizza?…

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. This was the woman who raged against the injustice of her own daughter’s death by burns and spoke for every mother who had ever lost her daughter in a dowry-related death. That fire did not die till Chadha’s own death at the age of 85…

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 a new low. Unlike his predecessors who have sought either to justify rape or blame women for the rise in violence against them, Pal’s statements are in a whole new league: For the first time, an elected MP has on camera actually threatened rape as…

Where does the trajectory of violence begin? Perhaps it begins by grabbing someone’s arm. Perhaps it begins with a slap. Today’s stalking becomes tomorrow’s acid attack. Today’s groping becomes rape. Namita Bhandare writes. Two common friends emerge key witnesses Given the identity of the people involved — a former actor, a high-profile businessman and both co-owners of a cricket team — the media storm over a three-page police complaint should not come as a surprise. What does is the subtext surrounding the chatter on social and mainstream media. Investigations are still on. Witnesses are yet to be summoned and Ness…

Where does the trajectory of violence begin? Perhaps it begins by grabbing someone’s arm. Perhaps it begins with a slap. Today’s stalking becomes tomorrow’s acid attack. Today’s groping becomes rape. Two common friends emerge key witnesses. Given the identity of the people involved — a former actor, a high-profile businessman and both co-owners of a cricket team — the media storm over a three-page police complaint should not come as a surprise. What does is the subtext surrounding the chatter on social and mainstream media. Investigations are still on. Witnesses are yet to be summoned and Ness Wadia, against whom…

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 women do across the country. ‘Answering the call of nature’ is a euphemism that implies some blessed, bucolic state where individuals act on free will when nature ‘calls’. The reality is considerably more sordid. Across the country, in rural as well as urban India, millions…

The Ambassador symbolised a time when austerity was not just a cool statement of minimalism but also a necessity… Like the shared tiffin of long train journeys, the Amby was accommodating, stretchable and comforting, writes Namita Bhandare. I doubt there was any serious lamentation over a quiet announcement last month by Hindustan Motors that it was ceasing production of its Ambassador car. Sure, the car had its fans — a few thousand Kolkata taxi drivers and a clutch of blighters in a corner of Britain (the car was modelled on the Series III Morris Oxford) — but maybe it was…

The Ambassador symbolised a time when austerity was not just a cool statement of minimalism but also a necessity… Like the shared tiffin of long train journeys, the Amby was accommodating, stretchable and comforting. I doubt there was any serious lamentation over a quiet announcement last month by Hindustan Motors that it was ceasing production of its Ambassador car. Sure, the car had its fans — a few thousand Kolkata taxi drivers and a clutch of blighters in a corner of Britain (the car was modelled on the Series III Morris Oxford) — but maybe it was just time to…

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 speeches, interviews and manifestos, women’s empowerment made for a neat television sound bite, but failed to translate into political reality. In a country where 130 million, or 53% households, have no toilet or water source in their homes, according to Census 2011, and 160 million,…

If Narendra Modi’s ego is as large as his detractors claim, then he will want to be remembered as a great prime minister, better even than Atal Bihari Vajpayee. To do that he will have to focus on growth and development. At the end of this interminably long election of fear and loathing, three questions: First, if Narendra Modi does indeed become prime minister, as opinion polls indicate, what sort of prime minister will he be? I don’t entirely share the sense of looming Armageddon that many others seem to fear. In letters by intellectuals and edit articles in newspapers,…

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 the exploitation of women in a deeply patriarchal society. The book was publicly condemned at the central standing committee of the All-India Shia Conference at Lucknow as a “filthy pamphlet” that had “wounded the feelings of the entire Muslim community”. The Urdu press called for…

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 Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). Candidates with criminal charges against them, including some women, account for 17%. The numbers relate to the tickets distributed for the first seven phases of the 2014 election. Of the 6,672 candidates analysed so far by ADR, a group of…