The Quint
Aadhaar should act as a facilitator rather than a tool for excluding the beneficiaries. It will be a travesty if a virtual ID service is able to deprive poor of right to decent life and well-being.
Recent Supreme Court judgment states that “the human rights of a daughter, brother, sister or son are not mortgaged to the so-called or so-understood honour of the family or clan or the collective”
Even the Merriam-Webster dictionary declared that the word for 2017 is ‘feminism’
Merit and academic/professional achievements can never exist in a classless isolation. In real world, there are no level playing fields.
The focus is on protagonists own struggle with love and relationships; there is little or no involvement of parents or for that matter even society.
Travel is not the only and rather seldom the means to broaden one’s horizons or change a person for the better. It is not some neatly packaged version of your personal Eat-Pray-Love.
Disney is rewriting and completely reimagining the fairy tales with strong feminist heroines and brave young people subverting gender roles and traditional ideas of romance and courtship.
The rhetoric of ‘if a chai wallah can become the PM why can’t you?’ is dishonest on several counts.
In the RGMVP model, they saw the tremendous power of the group and the strength that comes through collective organisation and therein lays the genesis of an innovative idea
If religious customs are not in tune with contemporary ideas of women rights then for every one step forward there will be two steps back.
Our society’s discomfort with sexuality and especially with women’s sexuality has meant that it has always tried to view sexual pleasure with guilt and shame.
In ‘Tamasha’, Ved is supposed to be finally living his creative vision. And yet no one takes a moment to acknowledge the fact that his quest of rediscovery has no basis.
The existence of eunuchs in the society, challenges the system not only to acknowledge multiple sexes, but also to accept the idea, in myth and reality, that sex and gender can be changed within an individual’s lifetime.
NDA’s new Labour Code Wage bill may not be the best answer to boost economic productivity.
Down to Earth
Participation of the community is essential for successful implementation of healthcare schemes
Experts have for long argued there is enough food to ensure nobody dies of hunger but people are not able to access it.
The bid to fight polio demonstrated excellent coordination between all stakeholders and multi-pronged attack on the virus.
In academia there are no shortcuts.
They help break rigid feudal hierarchies that have existed for generations.
Tehelka
Prioritising menstrual health and hygiene for women will necessitate a shift in the way women’s health is perceived in policy discourse.
Learning from the recent starvation deaths in Jharkhand, the nation’s leaders must pay heed to the necessity of ensuring food security for all
A move away from merely looking at economic indices to more social measures and defining poverty is necessary as economic growth is not translating into development
NewsD
India is facing large-scale microbeads pollution. Though the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) banned the use of microbeads in cosmetics in 2017, it will come into implementation in 2020.
Advertisements not just perpetuate harmful stereotypes like promoting toy guns for boys and tea sets for women but also target products based on what society deems as men’s vs women’s work.
Dystopias can function not just reminders of problematic social realities taken to extreme ends but also impending crisis due to rising violence and inequality, rise of totalitarian regimes, suppression of dissent or debate and a wilful neglect of art and literature.
Oster’s book is informative when parenting has become a serious of must dos. Where new parents find themselves overwhelmed with plethora of information and face what they feel are extremely important choices.
From Mary Shelley to Margaret Atwood.
It is vital to recognize the reason for Dr Payal Tadvi’s suicide as what it is – an instance of caste based violence
From potential “cure” for AIDS to new ways to treat post partum depression.
The hypocrisy of tweeting from the comforts of one home and asking for destruction and blood stands in sharp juxtaposition to the condition of the actual soldiers who fight the wars.
The World Health Organisation has recently released the top ten threats to global health that will require immediate and effective attention. Most of these threats have the potential to cause substantial morbidity and mortality. I evaluate how India fares on each of these.
Measles outbreak has now affected all the regions of the world with surges in Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean region and Europe.
An increasingly large number of millennials are willing to explore friendships with people different from them and hold off judgments for tolerance and acceptance.
Photo Essay
The year 2018 saw some interesting movies that made the news or generated debates.
Vaccines remain one of the most effective, low cost and efficient public health tools for the control of diseases and form a vital part of preventive medicine for control and eradication of diseases. Years 2011-20 were declared the Decade of Vaccines.
So can women have it all? Perhaps this is a trick question – for in reality no one can really have it all– no matter how narrowly all is defined. However, women are particularly struggling with work-life balance.
Thousands of tribals and farmers in Gujarat are planning a mass protest against the unveiling of the statue. They are unhappy with the cost of the project, and with the lack of adequate rehabilitation efforts and water shortages in the catchment area where the statue is located.
These recent judgements have given hope that other patriarchal practices and acts might also be struck down soon.
It must be noted that tribals are diverse group of population with varied health indicators and needs. The policies and programmes to cater to them must take into account these differences and special needs.
No woman accuses a man of rape of attention. Women gain nothing by making ‘false accusations’ in a system that is designed to humiliate and mistrust them.
In what is being termed as an “emergency” the raids and detentions of activists accused of being “urban naxals” or having alleged Maoist links, have opened the debate on freedom of speech and the limits of the state.
This natural disaster brought forth how commonplace bigotry, ignorance, and hatred can find its way into social media and even from people holding positions of influence and responsibility.
Office of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha is vital for the bipartisan and effective functioning of democratic debates. A certain neutrality and fairness is expected from a person who sits on the chair.
Right to Information Act has been one of the most vital legislation for bringing in accountability and transparency in governance and the state. It has enabled people to become more closely engaged with the democratic processes as work. The government must not be allowed to get away with diluting this empowering instrument.
Adoption of better technologies and modern agricultural practices, consistent government policies, better allocation of water resources and greater access to cheaper credit can go a long way in helping the farmer plan and produce better. In the long term land reforms and better rural infrastructure in terms of roads and markets will have a greater impact on the Indian agriculture.
While there is no denying that good occupational health is a desirable goal in itself, but necessary if the economic development is to be made sustainable and production more efficient.
Rahul Gandhi’s press conference foreshadowed some interesting ideas for the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections 2019: that the role of institutions will be under scrutiny, that tactical alliances might see opposition unity, and that the battles will continue to be fought on ideology.
India again stands at a crossroad. How we ensure justice for women and girls and guarantee that the law is equal for all will determine if there is hope for the nation and its people or if we have completely failed the women of the country.
Hate works by ‘othering’ – systematic exclusion. This ‘other’ can be anyone. It can be a religious group, caste group, an entire gender, a region or a language. As narrow definitions of nationhood and identity are imposed, many who had thought themselves ‘safe’ will soon find themselves vulnerable.
In the current times, student protests have been labelled seditious and politics in the campus has been denounced or cracked down. However, when personal is political, institutional mechanisms routinely fail students and there is collusion between perpetrators and powerful, student politics is progressive, indispensable and need of the hour.
Vaccines remain one of the most cost effective and efficacious public health measure and immunisation programmes, for saving millions of lives, especially in a low resource setting, are a vital public good.
The mainstream media, whose bombastic anchors fill our prime time news slot with multiple panellists and shouting matches, seems to have overcome any shred of journalistic ethics or courage. The coverage is both frivolous and tasteless or functioning as cheerleaders for the powers.
India’s happiness score mostly consists of GDP per capita and good social networks. India scores lower on healthy life expectancy – a comment on our poor health systems, and freedom to make life choices. However, it is its score on generosity and perceptions of corruption that are lowest and form a minuscule part of its overall happiness score.
Morning people tend to have lower levels of fatigue, lower rates of anxiety and depression and tend to be more persistent. On the other hand, evening people are more impulsive, creative, temperamental and novelty seeking.
Dissenting opinions create a lively discourse. How such dissenting views play out in a society can indicate whether it’s a plural democracy or an authoritarian state.
Globally it is the fifth most common cancer in humans and second most common cancer for women.
India might be witnessing a worrying destruction of secular principles today and that will not bode well for a nation that has prided itself on multi-cultural atmosphere and unity in diversity.
Delhi has turned into a gas chamber overnight. The damage through this exposure is equivalent to smoking more than two packs of cigarettes a day.
The idea of writing a novel in a month, with deadlines and peers is interesting in several ways.
Undernourishment can have momentous development delays in the population both in terms of physical and mental health.
Gandhi redefined non-violence not only to mean negation of violence – something passive or signifying an absence – but something with positive presence and unbounded energy.
Rahul Gandhi’s trip to the United States of America where he interacted with political and business leaders, students, and Non Resident Indians is being largely seen as a success.
Online modes of communication have given us freedom of choice: choice in who we interact with and who we shut out.
The discourse around violence against women in India tends to revolve more around violence outside, inflicted by strangers. It is thus no surprise that the violence that takes place inside homes and is perpetrated by partners rarely comes to light.
Young, urban Indian’s relationship with caste is interesting and problematic.
Mansplaining has become a universal experience for women in the workplace and even outside of it.
Leaving a hotel room induces mild anxiety.
The charm of small town lies in its security, in its familiarity, the lesser distances, the easily achievable plans, the relative cheapness, and the comfort of knowing that the city is one’s own.
Statue of the Fearless Girl has opened up an interesting and wide ranging array of debates.
Suicide is a tragedy of the worst kind. It entails the level of hopelessness that makes people take their own life.
Prioritising the discourse around women health and safety can be the best solution for ending open defecation and promoting safe sanitation in India.
The millennials are country’s asset. Yet the adult life is not proving easy on the young generation.
Spectacle and propaganda is often more appealing than hard facts and the long due processes of the law.
The Wire
So far, Indian democracy has endured rather well in a multi-ethnic, linguistically diverse and rather large country with a billion people. People’s faith and moral approval of democracy continues despite distaste with corruption and criminalisation of politics.
Premchand’s nationalism often looked inward, at Indians, the decay of their culture, the condition of women and poor, the caste system or communalism.
Women have decided that they will no longer be silent, they will reclaim spaces and own their voices, and most importantly they will stand with each other in camaraderie.
Public outrage and protests are significant in protecting the freedom of speech and expression, and are means of safeguarding the resilience of democracy.
Although UNICEF data shows the need for increased dialogue on menstrual health, little has been done on the ground to facilitate that.
Medium
This frequent exercise in moving does curious thing to memories, on one hand it strengthens one’s ability to forget and move on; and on the other hand and in another way it strengthens the ability to remember.
Social science researchers and implementers are essential for the discipline and the sector.
CSR Mandate
It is seen that women in these SHGs have greater mobility, are less likely to practice seclusion, question patriarchal and discriminatory customs and practices, and this has a cataclysmic effect on other women from the community.
Policy Pulse
Fight against polio through vaccination alone is no guarantee to keep the disease away
Swati Saxena 