George Miller’s explosively powerful new film, Mad Max: Fury Road is creating a worldwide debate about its utter disregard for the masculine grandstanding its previous outings were known for. But then George Miller is the kind of a director who really does not play by the rules. He can go from the sweaty and steely […]
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Category: Issues
Voices From a Forgotten Wasteland
The East Parej open coalmine in Ramgarh district, Jharkhand has left the landscape scarred and ravaged after nearly a decade of mining activities. The communities displaced by the mines and those on the borders of it, live out their days in a cloud of soot. Community Correspondent Basanti Soren’s village, Lopongtandi is a kilometre away from these mines. As […]
Final Untouchability
A frantic series of emails and phone calls impolitely disturbed what had till then been an uneventful May morning at the Video Volunteers office. At a human rights and media organisation like ours there are many days that shake the very foundations of one’s belief systems; this had turned into one of those days. A Community Correspondent was covering […]
Aruna Shanbaug: A Tribute
She was no Nirbhaya…. Not born in the age of fast news; No voices, no candles, no protests, Grieved for her! She hadn’t gone out with a friend; No jeans; no mobiles; No reason for fingers to be pointed! Being a woman, her only fault! Half the world missed her story… A story…. Of […]
Aruna Shanbaug: Death Without Closure
Aruna Shanbaug died this week. Officially. She now merits tributes and a formal farewell though cognitive and full-bodied life, as she knew it, ended in 1973. How can anyone make sense of how the light in her was snuffed out with a dog chain during a rape so ghastly that it rendered her comatose for […]
India Sends Children Back to Work
At a meeting in Delhi recently, the Union Cabinet approved provisions to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2012. A key revision states that children below 14 cannot be employed anywhere, except in non-hazardous family enterprises or the entertainment industry. But if you state this differently, it becomes clear that the amendment allows […]
No, A Woman Is Not Like a River
I am not ashamed to admit that Aitraaz is one of my Bollywood guilty pleasures. I watch the film every time it’s on television-Not only do I find it highly amusing but I also find it interesting because it touches upon the fact that males can also face sexual violence. Anyway, as I watched it today […]
Not Human Enough?
In 1982, my mother was hit by a truck on her way to the school where she taught. The driver fled and a man who was driving a jeep, thankfully stopped, picked her up and brought her to the hospital and then somehow found a way to get in touch with us. I remember being […]
Why Strong Is The New Pretty
Body shaming is officially being shamed now. From men breaking away from the sculpted stereotypes peddled in ads to show off their ‘dad bods’ to model Chrissy Teigen tweeting an image of her stretch marks and inspiring hundreds of women to post images of their post-pregnancy bodies. To ‘mom bods’ with their saggy bellies and […]
Forgiving the Unforgivable
When South-African sporting legend Oscar Pistorius’ trial post the tragic and gruesome murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp turned into a television soap opera, I remember thinking just how ironic is it that the word, ‘icon’ has also the word ‘con’ in it. How truth about guilt does not matter as long as the perception […]
The Noises Of Inanity
The tyranny of perception management. Only a few hours after she gave birth, Kate Middleton posed with a big smile for the cameras with her baby daughter in her arms. Her flawless, yellow dress hugged her perfect, postpartum body and as she cooed over the baby and waved at the invisible crowds, you forgot […]
Sabeen Mahmud: The Rebel Who Stood Her Ground
What can you say about a woman who loved Urdu poetry, a cat named Jadoo, Pink Floyd, Steve Jobs and human connections? And who, in her own words, fell in love with a Macintosh Plus computer over two decades ago? The computer changed the course of her life as it helped her to shape an, […]