The undersigned students’ organisations and unions from North East India, would like to extend solidarity with people of African origin living in India and particularly those who were attacked in Greater Noida recently. We empathise with the violence, ordeals, and humiliation faced by Africans in India. We are distressed to learn of the ongoing situation, and denial of the Indian government to term the incident as racist is worrying. Various incidents of racism against people of African origin in India from the past are not isolated incidents, they stemmed from the deep rooted prejudice mindset of the majority of Indians. We condemn racial discrimination against anyone (particularly people of African origin) and caricatures people make by creating stereotypes like cannibalism and drug users/peddlers. These stereotypes are reflection of racist mindset which we, people from North East India are also at receiving end over and over again.
Canada’s intervention sought for the release of Saibaba : Radical Desi
Guest Post by Radical Desi
A letter asking Canada’s Minister of Sports and Persons with Disabilities Carla Qualtrough to intervene for the release of disabled social justice activist who has been convicted for life in India was submitted at her constituency office on Tuesday, March 28.
Signed by 100 people, the letter asks Canada, which claims to be a human rights leader in the world, to press upon the Government of India to free G.N. Saibaba, a wheelchair bound Delhi University professor who is 90 percent disabled below waist.
Saibaba was sentenced to life imprisonment early this month under draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for standing up for the rights of the oppressed communities, including Adivasis (Indigenous peoples) and religious minorities.
Saibaba was first arrested in 2014 and incarcerated under inhuman conditions sparking protests across the world. Demonstrations were also held in Greater Vancouver, including one outside the Indian Consulate. Though Saibaba got bail on medical grounds, he has now been convicted after being branded as Maoist supporter. His only fault is that he has been raising voice against repression of the Adivasis, who are being evicted from their traditional lands by the extraction industry in connivance with the state authorities. Often the security forces and the state sponsored vigilantes target Adivasis in the areas under the influence of Maoist insurgents in the name of war on terror. By punishing Saibaba the Indian state is clearly trying to suppress a voice of dissent.
The representatives of Radical Desi submitted a letter asking for Canada’s intervention into the case at the constituency office of the Honorable Carla Qualtrough in Delta.
Continue reading Canada’s intervention sought for the release of Saibaba : Radical Desi
India’s Health Policy: A long tale of underachievement – Prakash Gupta
This is a guest post by PRAKASH GUPTA
Health has been the most neglected policy domain in India.The fact that India made it first National policy on Health in 1983, 36 years after independence itself reflects the level of priority for the state. India’s health policy, health financing in particular, suffers from ‘shifting goal posts’ phenomenon. Continue reading India’s Health Policy: A long tale of underachievement – Prakash Gupta
Shut down JNU if not one way then another? JNUTA statement on UGC regulations
JNU administration has drastically cut intake into the university for the next academic session and perhaps for years to come, using the UGC ‘caps’ on research as a pretext. JNU Teachers’ Association demonstrates conclusively here through a survey of 46 Central Universities, that barring a handful which have definitively adopted them, most others are still operating with other Regulations based on the preceding 2009 version. And even the few universities that have adopted them, barring JNU, have implemented modifications by way of harmonisation with the statutes, objects, and past practices of the institutions.
JNU not being targeted using the UGC Regulations as a pretext? Right.
Over the past few weeks we have been told that the mandatory nature of the UGC Regulations require them to be implemented by universities immediately and in a chapter-and- verse fashion. JNUTA’s survey of 46 Central Universities however shows that barring a handful who have definitively adopted them, most others are still operating with other Regulations based on the preceding 2009 version. And for even the few universities that have adopted them, barring JNU, modifications in the way of harmonisation with the statutes, objects, and past practices of the institution have inevitably resulted.
Table 1 presents the facts of 46 Central Universities, the year of their founding, and the research programmes they take admission to. To determine whether they had adopted the 2016 UGC Regulations, we examined the Ordinances and notifications on the university website in order to detect its adoption. (The value label unclear is to mark the cases where no explicit information of either type was posted on the university’s website.)
Continue reading Shut down JNU if not one way then another? JNUTA statement on UGC regulations
Bovines, India And Hinduism: Rajani K. Dixit
Guest post by RAJANI K. DIXIT
In Vedic mythology we come across the story of sage Trita looking for fire and finding it in the head of a cow. Today we face a really big and scorching fire ensuing from bovines in India. Cows, we are told, are worshipped by Hindus and cow slaughter is therefore a religiously sensitive subject. Dalits and non-Hindus have been severely tortured or killed on suspicion of cow slaughter by such sensitive people.
Let us see what the laws and constitution of our secular state as well as the religion claimed to be that of the majority of India’s population, have to say about cow slaughter.
In the Constitution of India, prohibition of cow slaughter is included in the Directive Principles of State Policy (guidelines to the central and state government for framing policies, not enforceable in any court of law). The directives on cow slaughter are recorded in Article 48 which reads
“The state shall endeavor to organize agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds and prohibiting the slaughter of cows, calves and other milch and draught cattle” (Directive Principles of State Policy, Ministry of Law and Justice).
This makes it clear that, India being secular, the Directive Principles of the Constitution are not against the slaughter of cows, but of milch cattle in general, and not for religious but for economic reasons. The term ‘milch cattle’ includes cows, buffaloes as well as goats. India consumes much more of buffalo milk as compared to cow milk. Also, since more than 65% of the world population drinks goat milk, it is highly possible that large proportion of Indians also drink goat milk.
Continue reading Bovines, India And Hinduism: Rajani K. Dixit
India owes answers to the world for Samjhauta blasts : Gurpreet Singh
( Photo Courtesy : Indian Express)
Guest Post by Gurpreet Singh
India which has always claimed to be a victim of terrorism for all these years owe answers for one of the worst terrorist incident that is hardly discussed by the anti terror activists across the world either due to silence over Hindutva violence or Islamophobia that continues to grow in the post 9/11 environment.
Ten years have passed as the families of the victims of Samjhauta blasts continue to wait for justice.
On February 18, 2007 explosions aboard Samjhauta rail express that connects India and Pakistan left 68 people dead and about 50 injured. At least 42 of the victims were Pakistani citizens most of them returning to their home country after visiting relatives in India. The rail service was started to connect the families divided by partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and promote people to people contact between the neighbouring nations that have gone to two major wars in 1965 and 1971. Continue reading India owes answers to the world for Samjhauta blasts : Gurpreet Singh
Caste Based Feudal Oppression in the Feudal Badlands of Bihar: Vikas Bajpai & Ish Mishra
Guest Post by Vikas Bajpai and Ish Mishra (on behalf of ‘Janhastakshep’)
A Report on the Ghastly Beating up of Two Youth of Extremely Backward Castes by Kurmi Landlords in Nauva Village of Kochas Block of Rohtas District in Bihar.
Prelude
On the 29th of January an incident happened in Nauva village of Kochas block of Rohtas district in south Bihar which reportedly involved two youth of extremely backward castes and the Kurmi landlords (belonging to the dominant among ‘Other Backward Castes’). Janhastakshep came to know of the incident through a short video of the incident that was brought to our attention by some activists of All India Kisan Mazdoor Sabha (AIKMS) who have proactively taken up this issue in Rohtas.
In the video we could see two youth who had been stripped naked, with their hands tied behind their back being beaten up mercilessly. It was also reported to us that these youth were branded on various parts of their bodies with hot iron rods. The video looked scary and on first impression made the video of beating up of Dalit youth in Una town of Gujarat for having committed the crime of skinning a dead cow; appear much milder in comparison. Judging the seriousness of the issue Janhastakshep decided to send a team for investigation of the case. A two member team comprising of Prof Ish Mishra of Hindu College, Delhi University and Dr Vikas Bajpai of the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at Jawaharlal Nehru University, left for Sasaram (district headquarter of Rohtas) on the 16th of February, 2017.
This report seeks to go into the details and analysis of the case with a hope that the larger issues involved there in shall ultimately see the light of the day and would be deliberated upon in the society.
Remembering Chandu, Friend and Comrade: Kavita Krishnan
Guest Post by Kavita Krishnan
It’s been twenty years since the assassin’s bullets took Chandu away from us, at 4 pm on 31 March 1997.
I still recall my sheer disbelief when a phone call from my party office at my hostel that evening informed me ‘Chandu has been killed.’ Chandrashekhar as well as youth leader Shyam Narayan Yadav had been shot dead while addressing a street corner meeting in Siwan – ironically at a Chowk named after JP – Jaiprakash Narayan, icon of the movement for democracy against the Emergency. A rickshaw puller Bhuteli Mian also fell to a stray bullet fired by the assassins – all known to be henchmen of the RJD MP and mafia don Mohd. Shahabuddin.
In the spring of 1997, as JNU began to burst into the riotous colours of amaltas and bougainvillea, Chandu bid us goodbye. He had served two terms as JNUSU President (I was Joint Secretary during his second stint) and had decided to return to his hometown Siwan, as a whole-time activist of the CPI(ML) Liberation. He had made the decision to be a whole-time activist a long time ago. Chandu’s friends know that for him, the decision to be an activist rather than pursue a salaried career was no ‘sacrifice.’ It was a decision to do what he loved doing and felt he owed to society.
Continue reading Remembering Chandu, Friend and Comrade: Kavita Krishnan
Victory of Anti-Posco Struggle
People United Shall Always Be Victorious !
(Photo Courtesy : The Hindu)
Big news – at times – go completely unnoticed.
(Thanks to the mediatised times we are passing through)
And thus it did not appear surprising that the decision by Posco, the South Korean steelmaker, the fourth biggest in the world, to exit the proposed 12 million-tonnes a year steel plant in Odisha did not cause much flutter. Yes, newspapers duly reported POSCO India’s ‘request to the Odisha government to take back the land provided to it near Paradip’ where it was supposed to invest 52,000 crore Rs.’ The letter stated company’s ‘failure to start work on the proposed plant’.
Perhaps none from the media wanted to showcase a negative example which is at variance with the efforts by the powers that be to project the idea of ‘ease of doing business’ here. Undoubtedly at a time when the government is keen to attract foreign capital and inducing it in very many ways, the way in which a Corporate Major – supposed to be one of the leading in the steel sector – had to exit from its project can easily shake their confidence about investing here. Continue reading Victory of Anti-Posco Struggle
Slimes Group Vice-Chairman Ameer Jain accused of molesting SOI employee Aaj Faker Shah? Breaking Faking News: Shehla Rashid
Guest Post by Shehla Rashid
Mar 21, Delhi: In a shocking revelation that has triggered panic amongst the media fraternity, renowned media tycoon, Ameer Jain, who is Vice-Chairman of the prestigious Parrot, Caveman & Co. Ltd, has been accused of sexual harassment by an employee of The Slimes of India newspaper, namely Aaj Faker Shah. Parrot, Caveman & Co. Ltd. (PCCL) is the group that owns Slimes of India, Slimes Now, Economic Slimes, Radio Tirchi, Movies Now and Then, Dhoom, Navbharat Slimes, Mumbai Broken Mirror and numerous other media outlets.
After the sexual harassment case filed by an employee of a major news magazine against its high profile editor some years ago, this is the most high-profile case of sexual harassment at the workplace in the media fraternity and is likely to result in a public spectacle, as the complainant, Aaj Faker Shah, has taken to Twitter to publicly make serious accusations of sexual assault against Jain. Normally, in cases of sexual harassment, the complainant must be accorded due anonymity. However, Shah reasons that he was forced to take this extreme step because the Slimes Group, in total violation of the norms prescribed by the Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Act (2013), sat on his complaint, victimised him for speaking out against Jain and even threatened to sack him. This reflects the state of implementation of the Workplace Harassment Law, rules for which were notified in 2014. Continue reading Slimes Group Vice-Chairman Ameer Jain accused of molesting SOI employee Aaj Faker Shah? Breaking Faking News: Shehla Rashid
JNUTA statement on HRD Minister’s Observations
JNUTA is disappointed at the statement by the Minister of Human Resource Development regarding the number of research scholars working with each faculty in JNU, and considers his remarks as unbefitting of the Minister of Human Resource Development.
First of all, the claim that there are JNU teachers guiding more than 20/25 registered students is simply false, as this suppresses the important fact that JNU like other universities across India, has a provision that allows students to deregister from the university. This provision has proved very beneficial, as it enables students to take up employment and slow-track their PhDs until their life circumstances allow them to return to their jobs. It is only when deregistered students over a decade are included that some professors can have a reasonably large number.
Continue reading JNUTA statement on HRD Minister’s Observations
Free the Maruti Workers: Maruti Suzuki Workers Union
Guest Post by Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union
[This is a statement and an appeal by the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union condemning the unjust handing down of a life sentence to 13 workers of the Maruti Suzuki Manesar Factory for a ‘murder’ (of an HR Manager) that the prosecution could not prove that they had committed. Here too, the prosecution, and the judgement, relies on a chimera, ‘the reputation of make-in-india’ to justify a harsh punishment. Those who have watched this space will recognize that this recourse to figures of speech in the absence of evidence is a familiar move. It has happened before – to satisfy the hunger of a ‘collective conscience’ when a so-called ‘temple of democracy’ was attacked. This time it has been invoked to defend the ‘fake-in-India temple that houses the deity of a rising GDP’, which would of course otherwise be besieged by insurgent workers.
This text contains a hyperlink to a detailed reading and rebuttal of the prosecution’s arguments, which demonstrates how money and muscle power can always be an adequate replacement for legal acumen in the State of Haryana. Please do follow that link. For the further edification of our readers, we append a short video interview by Aman Sethi of the Hindustan Times of the special public prosecutor, which spins some imaginative legal theory and also radically updates our sense of class struggle. Please do have the patience to view that video. We promise that this will be rewarded. – Kafila Admin.]
Continue reading Free the Maruti Workers: Maruti Suzuki Workers Union
A leaf from the illustrious life of the CM designate of Uttar Pradesh
Account of a ten year old story : Helps you understand the CM designate of UP
What happened in the eastern Uttar Pradesh town was not a conflict but violence unleashed by MP Yogi Adityanath and his henchmen
If one tries to understand the developments in Gorakhpur and its neighbouring areas of eastern Uttar Pradesh (Poorvanchal) from January 26 to 31, 2007 through the eyes of the print and electronic media, one moves further away from the truth. It is a sordid story of a highly communalised media conjuring up a riot, collaborating with BJP MP Yogi Adityanath, a Bal Thackeray clone and heir to the Gorakhnath Peeth operating from the Gorakhnath temple. Adityanath is a BJP MP for ‘technical’ reasons and cares a damn for the niceties of party discipline because he knows that the party cannot dissociate itself from him. Though he mocked the party by holding a Vishwa Hindu Maha Sammelan at the same time as the BJP’s National Council meet in Lucknow, the party did not mind. It had earlier swallowed the defeat of its candidate in the Assembly election by Adityanath’s candidate. One should know that he is a Thakur; and a Thakur heads the BJP now . The Thakur spread across party lines ensures that Adityanath is allowed to have his own way in his fiefdom, i.e. Poorvanchal. He makes it a point to give calls for a Gorakhpur bandh whenever the chief minister visits the town. Continue reading A leaf from the illustrious life of the CM designate of Uttar Pradesh
Hail the Students’ Struggle for its Victory in the Battle against Corporate Publishers : New Socialist Initiative
Guest Post by New Socialist Initiative (Delhi Chapter)
On 9 March 2017 three well-established academic corporate publishing houses, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor and Francis withdrew their copyright suit filed in the High Court against Delhi University and Rameshwari Photocopy Shop, a shop stationed at the Delhi School of Economics campus in Delhi University licensed by the University to carry out photocopying work. The suit that was filed in August 2012 on the grounds that photocopying material from books published by the above three publishers by university students, particularly in the compilation of coursepacks, constituted copyright infringement and revenue loss to the publishers. Right from the beginning it was clear this case was treated as a test case to instate a licensing regime, much like one that exists in the US and other First World countries.
Being the absolute primary constituency to be impacted by such a case and its possible outcomes, students of Delhi University were amongst the first to take up the battle against some of the most powerful publishing houses in academia. The ‘Campaign to Save D.School Photocopy Shop’ soon became the ‘Association of Students for Equitable Access to Knowledge’ (ASEAK), reflecting the growing politicisation of the student community on the issue of the knowledge commons in order to resist an increasing attempt across the world to create a market out of it where it didn’t as yet exist. This can be seen in the case of Costa Rica as well where there was an attempt to make photocopying illegal, a move that was successfully opposed on a massive scale by students.
The students of Delhi University, organised as ASEAK, opposed the move through a range of mechanisms, mobilising students from class to class, organising public meetings, taking out protest rallies, campaigning against these publishers at the annual World Book Fair held in New Delhi, influencing public opinion through writing in newspapers, and last but not the least, taking up the legal battle in the courts. NSI hails the struggle of the students that brought to the centre of the debate questions of equity and justice within the arena of production and distribution of knowledge resources, challenging the private property regime sought to be implemented in the sphere of knowledge production by these big academic corporate publishing houses.
For the last few years the primary site of the battle has been in the High Court at New Delhi. The publishers have received repeated blow after blow in this process as well, leading to their final withdrawal of the suit altogether. The win is a big victory and testament to the struggle of the students, backed by a legal team that has been seminal to the victory, along with support from the academic community. The case, that attempted to strike a ‘balance’ between private profits of the publishers and the rights of students to access materials in the pursuit of their education, has dealt a blow to precisely such a misconception that the two ‘interests’ are in fact of equal concern.
Along with students, who assert their right over the materials they access as part of their fundamental right to education, scholars, often the authors of these materials, have equally come out to state that there is no better reward for their work as intellectuals, as to be read by as many students as can get hold of their work, photocopied or otherwise. The emphasis of the corporate publishers in asserting absolute ownership over the works they publish, in a rare instance where the labour of writing a book is provided at no cost to the publishers, borne by universities, students’ fees and taxpayers’ money instead, is shameful and needs to be rejected at all cost.
NSI congratulates the students, lawyers, academics and concerned citizens who persisted in their resistance against the bullying tactics of big academic corporate publishing houses and calls on the academic community to engage with new ways of producing and sharing knowledge so as to create equitable, just and democratic structures of knowledge production.
EDUCATION OVER COPYRIGHT! KNOWLEDGE OVER PROFIT!
Deendayal in Government Schools : Neglecting Education, Indoctrinating Exclusion
(Photo courtesy : livehindustan.com, From left to right – Golwalkar, Deendayal Upadhyay and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, . Photo taken in Mathura during Goraksha/Cow Protection movement, 1965)
“DEENDAYAL UPADHYAYA is to the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] what Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was to Congress” opined R. Balashankar, former editor of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh’s (RSS) organ Organiser and now a member of the BJP’s central committee, on Prasikhshan Maha Abhiyan
(The Indian Express,; September 24, 2016).
Cows inhale, exhale oxygen, says Rajasthan education minister Vasudev Devnani
Rajaram (name changed) Principal of a school near Jaipur, Rajasthan is a worried man.
An honest teacher all his life, is not able to comprehend the rationale behind the recent order by the state education ministry asking every secondary and senior secondary school to purchase collected works of Deendayal Upadhyay Continue reading Deendayal in Government Schools : Neglecting Education, Indoctrinating Exclusion
In the face of election results, Nazim Hikmet on life and living
Nazim Hikmet was a Turkish poet and writer. A communist revolutionary, he was repeatedly arrested for his political beliefs and spent much of his adult life in prison or in exile.
Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example–
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
you must take it seriously,
so much so and to such a degree
that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
your back to the wall,
or else in a laboratory
in your white coat and safety glasses,
you can die for people–
even for people whose faces you’ve never seen,
even though you know living
is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees–
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier…
Translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk
UAPA – A Video Dossier: Media Collective, Arun Ferreira &Vernon Gonsalves
Video by Media Collective, Article by Arun Ferreira and Vernon Fernandes
Fifty Years of Unreasonable Restrictions
Arun Ferreira & Vernon Gonsalves
Soon after its adoption, the Constitution of India was amended in 1951. At the time several progressive judgements[i] by the Judiciary held that laws which curb fundamental rights are essentially unconstitutional and fundamental freedoms could only be curbed in the most extreme of cases. The First Amendment, countered this by amending Article 19 to add the word ‘reasonable’ before restrictions and to add ‘public order’ as being one more ground for abridging Fundamental Rights.
The evolution of UAPA[ii] has to be seen in the background of this gradual but steady constriction of Article 19 which guarantees the fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly, association, etc. Continue reading UAPA – A Video Dossier: Media Collective, Arun Ferreira &Vernon Gonsalves
Radhika Vemula on Bhim Auto
(Photo Courtesy : indiatoday.intoday.in, Photo Illustration by Saurabh Singh)
..The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.
..My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.
(Excerpts from Rohith Vemula’s suicide note)
The middle of this month would witness a different type of Yatra on the streets of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Neither it would be led by high profile leaders – who have the aura of Z plus security with them – nor it would be undertaken in an ultramodern bus – fitted with latest facilities and which could even be used as podium for a public meeting.
It would be taken out on a blue pickup truck renamed Bhim Auto and would be led by a fifty year old woman Radhika Vemula along with her son Raja demanding justice for her elder son Rohith. During this Yatra Radhika intends to visit one Velivada ( Dalit hamlet) after other in these two states to tell people how castiest forces are hell bent upon denying dalits their due rights and how justice is still being denied to her son who committed suicide because of the machinations of such people. (http://nsi-delhi.blogspot.in/search/?q=rohith+vemula). She would also communicate to them that not only the ruling dispensation at the centre led by BJP but the state governments in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have been callous towards the plight of the Dalits and have joined hands to deny justice to her son. Not some time ago the government of Andhra Pradesh had made outrageous statements about Rohith not being dalit and earlier in February had demanded that Radhika ‘prove’ that she is Dalit in 15 days. Continue reading Radhika Vemula on Bhim Auto
Looking ‘Right’, Talking ‘Liberal’ – The Twists and Turns of Makarand Paranjape: Anirban Bhattacharya
Guest Post by ANIRBAN BHATTACHARYA
[This missive to Makarand Paranjape, who is a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, comes in response to his recent op-ed piece in the Indian Express where he comments on the events at Ramjas College, Delhi University on the 21st of February and in their wake, in Delhi University, on the 22nd of February]
Mr. Makarand Paranjape. In your analysis of the post-Ramjas fallout in Delhi University in Indian Express on the 4th of March, one can see that you have donned a “liberal” cloak. But there were way too many holes in that cloak to go without a counter and hence this response.
Sterilization Death Camps in Bilaspur: An Open Letter to the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister by Concerned Citizens
[ This is a letter addressed to Raman Singh, the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh by several concerned individuals and organizations regarding the impunity with which medical guidelines are put aside by professionals who enjoy the patronage and protection of the state government.]
We, the 138 undersigned individuals and organizations working across the country on health and women’s rights are shocked and dismayed that the case against surgeon Dr. R. K. Gupta has been dismissed by the Hon’ble High Court on grounds that “the alleged act committed by the petitioner was while acting in discharge of his official duty and admittedly no previous sanction was obtained before initiating prosecution case against him”.
The Anita Jha Judicial Enquiry Commission report has clearly pointed out that “It is evident from the facts that in the camps organized on 8.11.2014 and 10.11.2014 there was a breach in the important necessities hence the standard operating procedure were not followed. As a result of which the symptoms of infections were found in post operative female beneficiaries“. It further states that “On the background of deliberation of investigation point number 1 to 3, investigation committee has found following persons Guilty/responsible, functionary, during 08 and 10 November, 2014:- 4.1 For not following standard procedures and for medical negligence by immediate functionary Block Medical Officer, Takhatpur…………….and surgeon who conducted surgery in tubectomy camp at Sakri and Gaurella ( Surgeries were completed by the same surgeon in the both camps)”.
Our “hormonal outbursts” will be your nightmare! Pinjra Tod
Statement and image by Pinjra Tod
On the eve of International Working Women’s Day, Maneka Gandhi has given a deeply patriarchal, casteist and classist statement to a media channel saying that hostel curfews are necessary as “laxman rekha” for controlling women’s “hormonal outbursts”, that the question of “women’s safety in colleges cannot be solved with just two Bihari guards with dandas”, that there should be separate days for men and women to go to the library at night.
Its clear to us that she has said this today in response to the fact that women students across the country from Benaras to Mumbai, Delhi to Patiala, Lucknow to Hyderabad, Chennai to Ludhiana, Roorkie to Cuttack have come out strongly to assert their presence in the university space and claim over public resources.
Continue reading Our “hormonal outbursts” will be your nightmare! Pinjra Tod
