Only 20% of students attend primary schools in Bihar’s Araria and Katihar districts, revealing a grim post-pandemic state of government schools.

A student just an exam away from finishing her Masters, a dental doctor on the verge of a career, and a school warden held hostage – the violence in Manipur has left them all rudderless. We speak to them in Delhi as they seek to rebuild their lives

The number of women commuters has doubled but with no funds, public bus networks are stretched, leading to overcrowding and disrupted schedules

The violence in Manipur has displaced thousands of people who are now staying in refugee camps. A tribal women’s collective from the north east is spearheading relief operations out of Delhi

The debate around the UCC goes back to colonial times. Here is an explainer of how the idea has evolved over time

The Telangana High Court recently struck down the state’s Eunuch’s Act which criminalised the entire transgender community. We explain why it was outdated and violative of citizen rights

What are the peculiarities of sleep and rest in the life of a female street vendor who works in a market that opens before dawn? Can alternate ideas of urban planning help reimagine her life, ease her anxieties? We return to Delhi’s Raghubir Nagar for answers

Frequent cyclones and erratic floods are increasing saltwater contamination, leading to health hazards and distressing living conditions

A heritage walk looks at the capital city’s historic and contemporary spaces through the queer lens, revealing some less known insights

Violent evictions from streets, abuse and brutality are routine for street vendors. A law to protect their rights suffers from flawed implementation

Digital illustrator Ritika Gupta talks about the significance of the digital medium for neurodivergent artists and why community networks for disabled artists must thrive

In this, the third in the series ‘Placing Work, Mapping Places’, we explore the many reasons why Raghubir Nagar’s women hawkers associate leisure with the safety of places of worship

Medical education has remained largely binary, focusing on male/female bodies, heterosexuality and Cis-gendered lives. There are nascent efforts now to make medical education – and the […]

Government policies oblivious to gender and caste inequities leave women livestock farmers from lowered communities without economic safety nets.

Except one, none of the PoSH-mandated Local Committees in the capital are doing what they should – create conditions that encourage women workers from the informal sector to speak up against sexual violence

Theatre can be a powerful, joyful medium for the trans gender community to make its voice heard

A trainer who works with marginalised youth groups believes that Dalit women in intercaste relationships do not get the respect they deserve

A range of issues – state apathy, knotty conditions, local hostility – hobble the programme

Godna, the fine art of tattoo painting, is practised by Dalit Dusadh women. Its approach, raw material, and themes are nothing like the more popular Mithila artwork

There is little conversation around violence against women and other marginalised groups on the internet

The bulldozers arrived with no notice, women allege, leaving them stranded without shelter or belongings

Data debunks false claims about ‘missing women’, the real problem lies elsewhere

Many athletes are not even aware of what constitutes sexual harassment and those who complain meet with apathy from government sports bodies, says Jagmati Sangwan, activist and former athlete

Gendered laws and emotional issues between transgender persons and their often estranged families are problem areas

Feminists have critiqued the use of criminal law in ‘rape on the promise of marriage’ but the issue of intersectionalities cannot be ignored

The country is partitioned. India is independent. Crowds of people are pouring in from East Pakistan—from Jessore, Khulna, Barisal, Faridpur, via Kushtia and the border at […]

The Jaharveer festival is an important event in the life of Mathura’s Valmikis, marking their distinct culture and identity

A craft brought by the missionaries changed the lives of Dalit women in multiple ways before it became the domain of a dominant caste

In cities like Lucknow and Varanasi, multiple barriers prevent queer women from accessing safe mental healthcare. Some of them turn to their community for comfort.

In an intercaste marriage, patriarchy and caste privilege decide food practices

The director of ‘Nooramma: Biriyani Durbar’, a play about Tamil Nadu’s biryani entrepreneurs from the transgender community, talks about his oeuvre and theatre as a space that brings many marginalised identities together.

With the women’s movement, theatre and Buddhism as her learning field, Du Saraswathi contemplates the truth written on our bodies.

Dalit histories are diverse and it is important to record and remember everything we can until they become mainstream.

The authors use a novel dataset based on NFHS-5 to present data highlights on child marriage in parliamentary constituencies across India. They trace the prevalence of female child marriage and the extent to which the situation has improved in certain states over the years. They discuss the issue of underreporting and the need for a holistic approach in empowering women to ensure a reduction in female child marriage rates.

In this, the second in the series ‘Placing Work, Mapping Places’, we detail the struggles of Raghubir Nagar’s pheriwalis in dealing with street and State violence. We ask them to reimagine their workspaces as safer, gender-friendly and more productive.

After recording some improvement in recent years, the growth in female labour force participation rate in India now seems to be stagnating. Among the women who work, the share of those who are self-employed has been increasing in recent years, even as their average earnings, already low, have dwindled further.

Hyderabad has had a 150-year-long history of women writing prose in Urdu, a longer one of poetry and other oral and creative expressions. But we know […]

Historian Uma Chakravarti on Pandita Ramabai’s radical photographs of conjugality and its discontents.

Currently, India’s legal structure shows little respect for care work of any kind

At a time when women urgently need rest, support and monitoring, ritual segregation can be dangerous

Indian history is replete with biographical and regional details regarding spatial and sartorial separation of women from men

As a young PhD student just embarking on research, I was very certain that I wanted to contribute to the field of education economics. After completing […]

Intersectionality has long been ignored in India’s mainstream feminist movement as a critical issue

In India’s cheapest second-hand clothes market, women have to reclaim public spaces to assert their right to livelihood constantly

Of the millions of workers who worked in India’s factories in 2019-20, less than a fifth were women. This share has remained largely unchanged for over two decades

A 51.7% rise in the price of LPG refills between January 2021 and July 2022 has forced women from low-incomes homes to minimise the use of gas stoves

There are rising tensions between the aspirations of thousands of workers and the work structure of the gig economy

With limited support structures, India’s LGBTQIA+ community has to work harder to plan for ageing and infirmity

The job is too ‘dangerous’, ‘dirty’ for women, say male-dominated newsrooms

Despite clear guidelines, insurance companies in India exclude those with intellectual and developmental disabilities from coverage

On December 13, 2022 the government of Maharashtra declared the establishment of a 13-member committee to ‘track’ inter-religious marriages. As per the resolution, this ‘interfaith marriage […]

Trigger Warning: This piece contains mentions of sexual violence which may be triggering for readers. On October 31, 2022 the Supreme Court of India once again […]

Transgender persons in India constantly negotiate their identities with the spaces they grow up in, live in, or move through in search of a home within and outside.

The livelihood crisis created by scorching summers, failed monsoons and frequent droughts in the arid Rayalaseema region of southwestern Andhra Pradesh has left women from poor […]

“What is this Udyam Registration Certificate? Why do I need the certificate?” Kalpanaben*, who runs a saree business out of her house in Delhi, is bewildered. […]

In June 1885, a 21-year-old woman, calling herself ‘Hindu Lady’, wrote two letters to The Times of India attacking the ‘wicked institutions’ of infant marriage and […]

Aiman Bhat, 39, describes herself as hanth, a pejorative in Kashmiri for childless women. She is an accomplished young woman with a doctorate in humanities but […]

On October 13, the Supreme Court of India passed its judgement on the hijab ban in educational institutions imposed by the Karnataka Government. The two-judge bench […]

The murder last week of Chennai college student Sathya Priya by her stalker is at once horrific and familiar: a young woman is followed and harassed […]

Forced to depend on their family for support and care because of social norms and ineffective government policies, elderly women with disabilities are highly vulnerable to […]

In 2021, a qualitative study was carried out on women’s career progression, access to healthcare and grievance redressal mechanisms across the textile and apparel industry. It […]

India’s law on sexual harassment at work has failed to account for the experiences of informal sector working women, most of who are from marginalised communities […]

The steady fall in India’s maternal mortality rate over the last two decades glosses over significant variations between states, districts and social groups, show data. Poverty, […]

India’s new laws on surrogacy, meant to prevent exploitative practices, still do not fully recognise the surrogate’s rights to full economic, medical, legal, and physical protection, […]

For two years now Shabana Khatoon has been living under a tarpaulin sheet near the Dhobi Ghat in south Delhi’s Jamia Nagar. For 20 years, this […]

The use of the archaic idea of feminine “modesty” in the interpretation of the penal laws on sexual violence is regressive because it undermines the violation […]

The sex ratio of the National Capital Territory of Delhi has been consistently skewed over three decades, shows a BehanBox analysis. The reason for this lies […]

Nafeesa Bibi* (36) was 16 when she left her home in a Bangladesh village and swam across the Ichhamati river into Bongaon in the North 24 […]

With no attention paid to their sanitation needs, India’s nomadic communities are forced to either defecate in the open or struggle for access to unsafe and […]

“You are talking about money for ration. Forget hundreds of rupees for food, we don’t have Rs 10 to give to the toilet attendant for our […]

With criminal networks, apathetic policing and patriarchal practices turning the impoverished Sundarbans delta region in West Bengal into a trafficking hub, it is now up to […]

India’s abortion law has evolved over 50 years to become seemingly progressive but it is still not rooted in the idea of reproductive justice, say historians […]

As August rains swept Delhi, more than 500 workers, mostly women, gathered around the Jantar Mantar monument to protest delayed wages, reduced workdays and digital glitches […]

After her undergraduate studies, Tara* decided to take an education loan to pursue a Master’s degree. In her loan application forms she named her mother as […]

The pandemic may have undone decades of work in controlling teen pregnancies, shows a Behanbox analysis: at least 7% of all women aged 15-19 years began […]

At the wedding of her baji (aunt), Tina was so awestruck by the dark red bridal suit that she was adamant she would wear one too. […]

Last week, the Supreme Court passed an interim order allowing an unmarried woman to abort a 24-week pregnancy. The court ordered the constitution of a Medical […]

‘Mobile Girls Koottam: Working Women Speak’, released in 2021, documents the real-life conversations between gender and labour rights scholar Madhumita Dutta,  radio podcaster Samyuktha PC and […]

Sugarcane cutting is relentless, backbreaking work, say the migrant women workers of Kothi village in Kaij taluka of Maharashtra’s Beed district. You have to hack at […]

Police stations with help desks for women, especially those run by women, are more likely to register cases of gender-based violence, says a new study, ‘Policing […]

The apex court observed recently that a government employee cannot demand pay parity only on grounds of similarity in designation and quantum of work. The bench, […]

I always suspected there was something wrong with the way I experience my periods. There were many days that I would feel the onset of PMS […]

The Calcutta High Court has ordered the Government of West Bengal to ensure adequate funds with the State Legal Services Authority (SLSA) to disburse compensation to […]

Here are some critical data-points on crimes against women in Delhi for the year 2020 from the Crime in India report by National Crime Records Bureau. 997 […]

Inclusive financial networks such as credit cooperatives are more effective than traditional financial institutions in relieving the financial distress of women whose lives and livelihoods are […]

The rights of women from India’s marginalised communities are being disproportionately constrained and eroded in digital civic spaces, says a report by The Bachchao Project, a […]

Reema*, 32, has been married for about five years but the man she thought would be her life partner has turned out to be a stranger […]

In the evening hours of the last week of May, I was getting ready to attend a political meeting when my phone buzzed. It was Poorvaja*, […]

India has laws and support systems for both transgender persons and people with disabilities, but none for those who are both identities – trans persons with […]

The recent Supreme Court directives on guaranteeing sex workers dignity and constitutional freedoms still leaves some critical problem areas unaddressed and these can only be resolved […]

How do state borders create and sustain the binaries between ‘citizen’ and ‘foreigner’? What implication do these have on the lived experiences of the women who […]

The recent industrial fire at an electronic assembly unit of Cofe Impex Pvt Ltd in west Delhi’s Mundka village has exposed the social and economic precarity […]

Experts argue that linking digital identities to sensitive health services not only restricts access to reproductive healthcare but also infringes on women’s privacy rights, especially for marginalized groups.

NEW DELHI: On Monday, May 9, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation brought bulldozers and the police to Shaheen Bagh to remove “illegal encroachments”. Residents protested against […]

At 25, and into the fourth year of an abusive marriage, N*, discovered that she was eight weeks into an unwanted pregnancy. She approached a doctor […]

Jagadevi, a seasoned elected woman representative, is currently serving as a ward member of the Chittawadi gram panchayat in north-east Karnataka’s Bidar district. She has been […]

From skin inflammation and blurred vision to respiratory and digestive disorders, women workers in Darjeeling’s tea plantations are struggling with an array of health issues caused […]

Shahida Banu’s decision to run for the seat of a sarpanch of Kuraj panchayat in Rajsamand district of Rajasthan was met with great resistance from the […]

Lack of information on and access to hygienic practices adversely affects girls and women, especially from marginalized castes and tribes.Only 37% women across India reported experiencing […]

On the morning of April 20, Raheema Begum* watched as her family’s only source of livelihood, a cold drink kiosk, was reduced to rubble during the […]