'Twenty-seven-year-old Sunita Sharma spends all her time cooking, cleaning and staying out of her husband's way. "One misstep and I will be slapped. His mood swings have been quite erratic since he started working from home. I just want to stay away," she tells The Quint on a call at 6 am. She does not know if she can "speak freely" while he is awake. Her voice quivering, she says that earlier, she would at least have the day to herself, but now she is “locked in captivity.”...
'Renuka Devi, who lives in Bengaluru, is staring at an uncertain future. For the next two weeks of the lockdown, the 32-year-old, who works as domestic help, is not going to get her monthly salary. Renuka works in multiple households to earn enough to run and manage her household. With the lockdown, several of her employers have refused to pay her and she is struggling to sustain her livelihood. Just like many women across India, who work as domestic helps, Renuka too is struggling to buy ration and does not have the privilege of social distancing in times of a pandemic.
'Following a huge reception that was organised for ousted Bigg Boss member Rajith Kumar in Kochi, a police case has been registered against 79 people responsible for it. Ernakulam Collector S Suhas wrote a Facebook post about the irresponsible behaviour at the time of coronavirus scare... Rajith Kumar, a Botany lecturer and public speaker, had first got into controversy at the time he made a speech at the Government Women's College in Thiruvananthapuram in 2013. He had then made derogatory remarks about women, which prompted one of the students to boo him and walk away.
'A local BJP leader and four others have been booked for allegedly torturing a 55-year-old tribal woman after branding her as a witch in Jhargram district. While three persons have been arrested, the BJP leader, Rabindra Hansda, and one more accused is absconding. According to police, the incident happened on Sunday night when the woman was abducted allegedly by Hansda and his men from her home at Bhalkishore village. They took her to his native village, Baghmari, where they beat her up and branded her with a hot rod. After the woman fell unconscious, she was dumped in her home.
'The festival of colors, Holi is here and soon all over one message is set to boom across – ‘Bura na maano, Holi hai (It’s Holi, take no offense).” However, we have been slow to realize what a travesty of consent the above slogan is. Starting by being normalized through Bollywood, the idea of a woman’s consent washed off faster that the color on her. From then to now has come such a time that this festival is now been given a communal colour by the right-wing saffron brigade. We tell you why the celebration of Holi in its current form is a threat to women throughout India...'
'West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party chief Dilip Ghosh on Sunday claimed that women had “lost all decency” and were being made to stage protests under the influence of drugs, the Hindustan Times reported. Ghosh made the derogatory remarks on International Women’s Day while commenting about an incident at Kolkata’s Rabindra Bharati University that led to massive outrage last week...'
'A dowry harassment case has been filed against Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal by his wife Priya in Bengaluru’s Koramangala police station. Four persons have been named in the FIR registered - Sachin Bansal, his father Satprakash Aggarwal, mother Kiran Bansal and brother Nitin Bansal... Priya, a dentist by profession, alleges that Sachin physically assaulted her and demanded money. In October last year, Sachin allegedly physically assaulted her after demanding that the properties they owned jointly must be signed over to him.
'What should also concern us is that the message of the Beti Bachao campaign itself is steeped in the same patriarchy that it claims to be fighting. And patriarchy is one area where ‘using fire to fight fire’ does not work. In June 2018, the Indian social media saw a photograph of a mural against sex selection on a wall in Haryana. The image showed a little girl, with her head covered, rolling out rotis, with the slogan ‘Kaise khaoge unke haath ki rotiya, jab paida hone nahi doge betiyan?’ (Who will make rotis for you if you won’t let daughters be born?).
'Two separate groups of women from the riot-hit areas of north-east Delhi, one of which was present at the Chand Bagh protest on Monday, and one which was present at the violence perpetrated at Shiv Vihar, have told The Wire that members of a right-wing mob pulled down their pants, exposed their genitals to them and said, “Yeh lo azaadi.” (‘Here, take freedom.’) ‘Azaadi’ is part of the rallying cry that protesters across the city have been using to ask for freedom – from the Citizenship Amendment Act, from the National Register of Citizens, from the reign of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah...'
'Close to 80 per cent of urban women working in low-income generating jobs in Hyderabad’s Old City area faced sexual harassment at their workplace, revealed a recent study. Most of them work in the unorganised sector and therefore, do not have access to an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) and do not have the benefits that women in the organised sector are provided with...'
