Rules to save girls from effects of hormonal outbursts

 Maneka Gandhi is the Indian cabinet minister in charge of the ministry of women and child welfare. When she was asked about hostel curfews which forces girl students to be in their rooms by around 6pm in government run college hostels, she had this to say.

At 16 or 17 you are hormonally very challenged. So to protect you from your own hormonal outbursts, perhaps a lakshman rekha (a line that should not be crossed) is drawn. It really is for your own safety,’

Now can there be any better example of victim blaming than this ????

Image credit : NDTV

Image credit : NDTV

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Custom Cuts – Explaining and exploring feminism

One evening, illustrator and graphic designer Pia Alize Hazarika got into an argument with a  woman. “She called me a bad feminist. It was because I didn’t align my views with hers. It sat a bit weirdly with me,” recalls Hazarika, founder of Delhi’s Pig Studio.

Instead of ranting about it online, she decided to channel her rage creatively, doing what she does best: draw a comic. “It would
show where I stand and what my beliefs are, and serve as a tool to show people that there’s a spectrum under which their views can fall; not everything is black and white,” she says.

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Moral policing by pink police

Last year the Police department in Kerala state of India started a “Pink Beat Patrol” for enhancing the safety for women and children in public places. The Pink Beat included  specially trained women police personnel. These police personnel was supposed to patrol on Govt run bus services and private stage carriers and was to be present at bus stops, schools, colleges and other public places. They were supposed to assist women, children and senior citizens travelling on buses. They were supposed to prevent street sexual harassment. These patrol vehicle was led by a women police officer and had two other women police personnel.

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Unfortunately this laudable attempt to prevent infringement of human rights of women is having the opposite effect. Several reports had come out which point towards moral policing by the Pink Police.

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Persecuted Editor Dalvi launches her online news portal

Several months ago I had written a post carrying an appeal for financial support for an Urdu journalist, Shirin Dalvi, to start a new Urdu news website. Dalvi was dismissed from her job as editor of an Urdu newspaper and was forced to go hiding due to attacks on her by Islamic fundamentalists.

The fund-raising organised by Nirmukta and Milaap was a success and the targeted amount was soon raised.

Now Shirin Dalvi has launched her website.

Two years ago, Shireen Dalvi, ex-editor of the Lucknow-based Urdu newspaper Avadhnama’s Mumbai edition had to quit her job because she reprinted a Charlie Hebdo cartoon of Prophet Mohammad after the terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine. She is back now with an online portal which she claims has more progressive outlook as opposed to other Urdu publications.
The website launch of www.urdunewsexpress.com was held on Saturday in Bandra and was attended by Urdu journalists and social activists. “The website will focus on truth, news and opinions. The coverage will not be specific to one community,” said Dalvi who got to see one sided coverage from Urdu media during the Charlie Hebdo issue

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Hindutva science and the cow

Hindutva forces currently running the central government in India is obsessed with cows. They worship not only cows but also its milk, urine and dung. But this love and worship is only for indigenously bred ones, not the “non Hindu” cows.

So it was not surprising to hear that several proposals for studies  to “validate” “beneficial” effects of indigenous cow urine, milk and dung was discussed in a workshop organised by Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Scientists and medical experts floated 40 proposals, including setting up a “gau vigyan (cow science) university” and researching the “anti-cancer” properties of cow urine, at a workshop organised by the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi on Sunday.

The programme was aimed at instituting a national project to validate the health benefits of Panchgavya – a concoction prepared with cow urine, dung, milk, curd and ghee.

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The Indian demonetisation fiasco

More than a month ago, on November 8th, in a nationally televised speech, Indian Prime Minister Modi announced that from that midnight onwards 85% of value of cash in circulation in India will become invalid. The two higher denomination currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 which were withdrawn from circulation formed the bulk of cash in use. Government gave time till December 30 to exchange or deposit old invalid notes, but put heavy restriction on the amount of withdrawal of new notes from Banks.

The stated reason for such a drastic move was to curb black money, eliminate counterfeit notes and to reduce terrorism.  Looking back after a month it seems the move failed in all counts while putting ordinary people, especially the poor to severe hardships. Moreover it opened new avenues of corruption with involvement of bank and income tax officials.

Most economists were very critical of the move. Here are some excerpts of the criticisms.

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Five years in school and not able to read ?

It is true that more and more girls are studying in schools in even the poorest of countries.

But are they all really becoming literate ?

Unfortunately the answer is no.

In a new study on female literacy and years of schooling in 53 low-income countries the authors reported some startling findings.

In half of the countries with comparable data, the majority of adult women who completed four to six years of primary school remain illiterate, in the sense of not being able to read a single sentence. They went to school for several years and learned approximately nothing.
In just a handful of countries, going to schools for at least four or five years is essentially a perfect guarantee of basic literacy.

They also detected big differences between countries in quality of education.

The gaps between countries are also eye-popping. To pick two examples, In Tanzania 57% of women between 25 and 34 years old who reported fifth-grade as their highest educational attainment could read a sentence. In Ghana, that same number was 3%. Essentially, a year of schooling in Tanzania seems to raise your chances of literacy by nearly twenty-times as much as a year of schooling in Ghana. Should we believe that, and if so, what does it mean for Ghanaian education ?

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“I am a big fan of Hindu” claims Trump

When you hear some one saying ” I am a big fan of Hindu” , most Indians especially in the south may think the person was talking about the 138 year old Indian English language newspaper with Left liberal leanings, “The Hindu”.

Mr Trump in his final attempt to consolidate as much votes as possible was praising  Hinduism, a religion with thousands of gods, followed by a sizeable number of Asian Indian voters in USA.

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