As the interfaith couple–Muslim man, Hindu woman–was about to enter the registrar’s office at Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh (UP) on April 18 to marry under the Special Marriage Act, they were accosted by a group of Hindu Yuva Vahini activists. This is ‘love jihad’ the group alleged. The man had befriended the woman on social media, using a fake Hindu name, it claimed. The police was called in to file a first information report (FIR) with various charges slapped on the man, including kidnapping and abduction. Then, they informed the woman’s parents who live in Ludhiana to come and take away…

In an event that got little public attention, the Greater Chennai Corporation launched a ‘gender lab’, the first such initiative by any local urban body in the country. Simply put, as the name suggests, gender lab is an experiment on what would happen, and what it would take, to design a city’s infrastructure keeping women in mind. The fact that the gender lab, set up with assistance from the World Bank and the Nirbhaya Fund, was inaugurated in the presence of the mayor and the police commissioner is a sign of intent and gives cause for hope. To start with,…

It is our convenient, shifting attitudes to rape, our unrelenting focus on the victim, not the crime, that makes us all complicit. That an elected head of a state is part of this mob makes it tragic Victim blaming is not new. Survivors continue to be asked what they were wearing, why they were out, and why they didn’t put up a strong enough fight. They continue to be subjected to banned practices like the two-finger test. If the case ever reaches court, they are asked humiliating questions; sexual history, for instance (REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO) The death of a 14-year-old girl…

History books might not tell you about these trailblazing women but do you know who they are? 1. Everyone knows Savitribai Phule, the self-taught feminist reformer who is India’s first female teacher, fought for girls’ education, campaigned for widow remarriage and set up India’s first infanticide prevention shelter in 1853 where unmarried women could leave their babies. In 1873 she organised a marriage. What was so unusual about it? 2. Name the 14th century Bhakti saint from the Mahar community who sang of family, the hardship of daily existence and devotion to God. Her 62 surviving abanghas (compositions) speak of being served left-over food…

After qualifying for the final in 2017 World Cup and the 2020 T20 World Cup, the hope that women’s cricket in India had turned the corner was belied when the team failed to make it to the semi-finals for the first time since 2016. There was no shortage of talent from the experienced Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami, who between them have played 432 ODIs, to Harmanpreet Kaul who has played more than 100 games. Balancing this was a raft of younger players including Shafali Verma who made her debut as a 15-year-old in 2019. So what went wrong? “World…

For women who continue to fight for the equal agency, there is something primitive about this modern version of throwing down the gauntlet The time has come to say to men: We will fight our own battles. If you’re an ally, support us. If you’re not, get out of the way. (Biplov Bhuyan/HT PHOTO) As often happens to women in public transport, the man brushes past me as he rushes to the front of the bus. Someone decides to act on my behalf and grabs the guy and slaps him. Other passengers get involved and there’s a free for all.…

Kanye West has been barred from performing at the Grammys due to his ‘concerning online behaviour’. Kanye, who now goes by the name Ye, is up for five Grammy awards. The incident that led to the rapper’s Grammy disbarment, and 24-hour suspension from Instagram, was a racial slur against Daily Show host Trevor Noah who had expressed concern for West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, after she filed for divorce in February. West’s online and offline behaviour has been, to be polite, erratic: overkill with a truckload of flowers to Kardashian on Valentine’s Day; posting private correspondence from her current boyfriend Pete Davidson; berating…

The Karnataka High Court has upheld the state government’s ban on the wearing of hijab (head-scarf) by students in school. The three-judge bench pronounced judgment on a petition filed by some Muslim girl students seeking protection of their right to wear a head scarf in educational institutes. The girls have now approached the Supreme Court to challenge the high court decision. What the judgement says “Wearing of hijab by Muslim women does not form a part of essential religious practice in Islamic faith. The prescription of school uniform is only a reasonable restriction…” “Prescription of school dress code to the exclusion of hijab, bhagwa,…

If a mere headscarf can disrupt public order, then who is responsible: The student who wears it or the law enforcement agencies responsible for maintaining the peace? A hijab-wearing student walks past a worker painting a wall to conceal a pro-hijab slogan, Hospet, March 16, 2022 (PTI) Two days before the Karnataka high court (HC) delivered its judgment upholding the hijab ban on students, India’s chief justice was in Hyderabad at the ground-breaking ceremony for a new arbitration center. Photographs of the ceremony with Hindu priests conducting rituals are instructive of the pervasive role of religion in our secular life.

The BJP’s return to power in Uttar Pradesh, making Yogi Adityanath the first chief minister in 37 years to return for a second consecutive term despite price rise, unemployment and the farmer agitation is being attributed in significant part to the woman voter. There is no data yet on how women actually voted, but an Axis exit poll suggests that across caste and religion, 48% women vis a vis 44% men voted for the BJP in UP, giving the party a critical eight per cent vote share lead. “A strong narrative of the BJP campaign was women as beneficiaries of…

If the promise to set up committees to look into complaints of sexual harassment in the Malayalam film industry holds true, it will be a historic first that comes nine years after India’s law on workplace sexual harassment was passed in 2013. At a recently concluded workshop, various film bodies in Kerala pledged to set up internal committees (ICs) in film production units and conduct awareness programmes for employees. Under the law, all workplaces must have ICs where women can file complaints of sexual harassment. These committees are empowered to investigate the complaints and recommend punitive action The film industry’s…

A boy is dead apparently because he did not fit social ideas of what is “normal”. His mother is fighting for justice. No parent should have to ever go through this again. The unpalatable truth is that bullying remains the most common form of violence across schools. (airborne) In the note he wrote before he jumped to his death from the balcony of his home in Faridabad on February 25, the 16-year-old wrote: “The school has killed me… especially higher authorities.” Police have arrested the headmistress of DPS, Greater Faridabad. A police complaint lodged by the boy’s mother, a teacher in…