The Secret Lives of Women

THE HADEES he had read yesterday talked about how it was Shaitan who always tried to corrupt us. If we escaped his attempts, we would surely go to Heaven. In Heaven, rivers of milk and honey flow, thousands of Houri women serve the men and make them happy. As she remembered this, she wondered, if [...]

Interview with Madhu Bhushan (cont…

THIS IS Part 2 of the two-part interview with Madhu Bhushan of Vimochana. UB: The feminist movement has always been very critical of militarism and war. Can u tell us more about your involvement with these issues? MB: While Vimochana’s specific concern was and is the socially sanctioned personal forms of violence perpetrated on women [...]

Interview with Madhu Bhushan

VIMOCHANA IS one of the oldest women’s rights organization in Bangalore. They have been part of the Indian women’s movement and have significantly contributed to the rights of women facing violence in Karnataka. They have a crisis intervention center for women facing violence called Angala and campaigns against dowry deaths, harassment and female infanticide. More [...]

Women’s Land Rights and Peace at Home

FROM BEING an issue that was considered almost ridiculous just a decade ago, the campaign for land rights for women has gathered momentum in recent times, especially since the 2005 Amendment of the Hindu Succession Act of 1956. The Amendment establishes the rights of daughters and widows of sons to a share in ancestral agricultural [...]

Girl Friday at the University

She wanders like a flimsy ghost in the two-hundred-year-old university where love thrives in large abandoned third-floor classrooms, monkeys shag on corridors, restless gossip piles up like dirty dishes in the canteen, and young women learn some tough lessons.

Of Need and Exploitation: Domestic Workers in Karnataka

‘I BEGAN WORKING when I was ten. I used to look after a child for which I was paid ten rupees a month. Today I am almost forty and I continue to work as a domestic maid. The difference is that my bones ache and I do not have the same energy. This is what [...]

On Caste and Patriarchy: An Interview with Ruth Manorama

RUTH MANORAMA (1964) IS winner of the 2006 Right Livelihood Award, widely considered as the Alternative Nobel Prize. She is President of the National Federation of Dalit Women and is widely known in India for her contributions in highlighting the precarious situation of Dalit women. Ruth has also contributed enormously to breaking the upper-class, upper-caste [...]

Of Exports and Other Exits: Women in the Garment Industry

GARMENT WORKERS dying in and around the premises of factories where they work reveal an extremely disturbing trend. Two days ago, 39 year old Padmavathi started vomiting at her workplace at 9.30 am. She requested her Production Manager at the Shalini Creations Factory for leave so she could go to a hospital. She was immediately [...]