“These capitalists will ruin us,” thundered Charanjeet Kaur, a thirty nine year old farmer with a medium landholding of 12 acres (4 hectares) from Wara Bhaika village in Faridkot district of Punjab. “Instead of bridging the gap between the rich and poor, government is trying to get rid of the poor altogether,” she told BehanBox on a mid December morning at Tikri on the Delhi-Haryana border–one of the two sites of the groundswell of protests against the new farm laws legislated by the Government of India.Sat beside her, Manjeet Kaur (40), a small farmer with 2 acres (0.8 hectares) landholding

Neeta (name changed), a cane cutter in one of the many sugarcane farms in Beed district of central Maharashtra, was only in her early 30s when she was forced to undergo a hysterectomy.Her menstrual period was a difficult one with severe pain in her abdomen that lasted several days. Her flow was heavy and she also had severe itching and foul odour in her vagina. On the fields where she worked, there was no place for her to change the basic cloth pads she used during her menstrual period. After months of unbearable pain, Neeta decided to forfeit a day’s

Badami Bai (32), had a problem on her hands, just a week before the Panchayat (India’s directly elected village councils) elections in India’s western state of Rajasthan in January 2020. The Bhil Adivasi contestant for the office of the Sarpanch (village council head) of Bhagoron ka Khera panchayat in  Banswara district suddenly found two new contestants running for office against her.“This was deliberately done by former Sarpanch Kamla Devi’s husband Chetanpuri, to undercut my vote share. He paid them Rs. 50,000  each to contest”, alleged a dejected Badami Bai.Badami Bai is no ordinary woman.  As a member of Ujala Samooh–

Transgender persons in India’s prison systems  remain invisible among all the vulnerable groups, with their rights and dignity as citizens denied, according to a new report “Lost Identity: Transgender Persons Inside Prisons” by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) and  University of Dundee.Take the case of Ishu, a transwoman, who was incarcerated when she was 19 in  Bengaluru Central Prison on charges of attempted murder and abduction in 2017. Inside the prison, she developed a serious infection after a breast augmentation surgery a few months prior to her arrest. Her situation worsened as the prison officials administered generic painkillers. She

As India announced one of the harshest lockdowns in the world, among the many groups that remained invisible in the government policy announcements were menstruating persons. Hygiene essentials for menstruating persons were missed out in the essentials list of items and services announced by the government. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in an affidavit filed in the Bombay High Court in response to a petition seeking that sanitary products be declared an essential commodity, said such a decision could only be taken after due process of assessing the demand and supply gap. Disposable pads were added to

On 27 September 2020,  three Farm Bills became law after receiving presidential assent.The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill 2020 , Farming Produce, Trade, Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020,collectively referred to  as the Farm Bills were earlier passed  in both houses of the Parliament on 20 September  and 22 September  respectively.  Despite repeated requests  from the opposition to send the Bills to a Parliamentary Committee for scrutiny, the bills were passed through a voice vote.The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services