Look Ma, new hands
Imagine looking down at your hands and seeing a stranger’s fingers. We spoke to recipients of hand transplants about their struggles as well as the joy of doing small tasks again.
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To stop child marriage, Maharashtra & Gujarat eye village budgets, rope in priests & caterers
Every silver lining has a cloud. The fifth National Family Health Survey, conducted in 2019-21, confirmed that the incidence of child marriages in India had steadily declined from 47% in 2005-06 to 23% during the latest survey. However, a closer examination revealed that the coronavirus outbreak had left young girls more vulnerable than ever.
Decoding the fictional country of Kailasa that catfished 30 US cities
It was a usual scene at the annual meetings hosted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in the UN Office headquarters at Geneva, last month. Conference-goers — NGOs, permanent missions, academic institutions from different countries — filed into a room inside the historic Palais Wilson building to discuss their rights.What was unusual was a delegation of about a dozen women — decked in gold jewel
'Fellowship' of social workers, lawyers helps poor undertrials navigate legal maze, get bail
Dia and Sonia (names changed), two sisters aged 20 and 21, had a troubled upbringing. Their mother, desperate to escape an alcoholic husband, remarried, but the girls never warmed up to their stepfather. They took to wandering the streets at night, falling into a life of crime that led them behind bars at the Byculla District Prison.
Spooked by recent 'airpocalypse', some Mumbaikars pack their bags
Vivek and his wife Anusha returned to Mumbai from South Africa in 2021 after a 15-year gap. Accustomed to daily runs and outdoor workouts while living in Johannesburg, they went running in Mumbai too. Except that whenever they did that, they found themselves gasping within 15 minutes. They are now among a small number of urban dwellers who have decided to relocate to another place...
An app to take the sting out of snakebites
From far flung farming villages to semi-urban towns as well as cities, tales of snakebite — a neglected tropical disease — abound. Over 58,000 people in the country succumb to snakebites every year and even though snakes are at the heart of the human-wildlife conflict in India — which also bears the highest burden of snakebite in the world with a record of 2.8 million cases between 2000 and 2019 according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) — there is little or no awareness.
India asked to tackle FGM at UNHRC meet
Just when efforts to end FGM — also called khatna/khafz and involves partial or total removal of the clitoris as part of a well-guarded religious practise among Bohra Muslims in India — was hitting a stalemate, the issue garnered global attention earlier this month when Costa Rica asked India to tackle the issue at the 41st session of the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva when 14 UN member states, including India were having their human rights records examined.
Why so many Shraddhas get stuck with abusive partners
Rather than pointing fingers at the victim, experts say it’s important to understand the complexities of intimate partner violence
The news cycle this past week has been dominated by the gruesome killing of 26-year-old Shraddha Walkar by her live-in partner Aaftab Poonawala, 28, who strangled her, cut her up into 35 pieces, stored them in a refrigerator and went on with life until he fessed up over drinks with a friend.
While the killing has sparked a debate about the impact of true crime show
Schemes for Covid orphans hit roadblocks on ground
The ferocity of the pandemic has killed parents of young children around the country. And out of nearly 10, 386 children who lost their parents - according to data from the Ministry of Women and Child Development in February 2022 - as many as 718 are from Maharashtra , which has the second highest number of vulnerable children in India after Odisha and among the top five states with the highest number of children orphaned during Covid-19.
Battlefield to boardroom, transition for many veterans is drill of a different kind
In his 20 years of military service, colonel Sabyasachi Rath , 43 has flown helicopters in treacherous terrains including the Siachen Glacier, commanded units along the Northern Borders and clocked in 2500 hours of flying time for the Indian Army. Lately, Rath's survival skills have been put to test over a conflict he did not anticipate when he decided to retire in January, 2023.
How girls are saving girls from traffickers in the Sundarbans
Teenaged groups keep an eye on unscrupulous agents who come with fake job offers or marriage proposals and alert authorities if there is a risk.
Why trafficking survivors need more than 'rescue'
There are endless stories of human trafficking rescues — of women, girls and a handful of minor boys from far flung corners of the country sold into brothels, construction sites and even middle class homes — flooding our news feed every day. The world now knows about those caught in the trap of what is referred to as modern day slavery but the stories of struggle after they manage to escape the clutches of their traffickers, remains largely untold.
Manipur’s all-trans football team boots out stigma
Five episodes into a recently released docuseries in which Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry team up to probe mental health issues of celebrated stars like Lady Gaga , Glenn Close, Ginny Fuch and others — the frame suddenly shifts to the hilly tracts of Manipur with a 30- year-old Sadam Hanjabam quietly piercing the narrative.
Schools embrace inclusivity, adopt gender-neutral uniforms, language
No more “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen!” at the annual day function at Birla Open Minds International School from now on. The school in Walkeshwar and its 138 branches across the country have decided to do away with its traditional greeting at events and meetings by replacing it with gender-neutral alternatives such as “Dear guests” or “Hello everyone” as a step towards inclusivity.
Pandemic turned these grandparents into parents
Back from school on a Wednesday afternoon, Avdhoot, 8 and his sister Arohi, 6 plonk themselves in front of the TV and can’t stop cracking up at the antics of Shin Chan, the naughty five-year-old kid from the Japanese animation series, even as their grandmother Shubha Joshi tries to feed them their favourite idli and shush them when her phone rings.
Manual scavenging is still an open secret, bares youth campaign
Three years ago, when a 19-year-old Aniket Udale stood at Thane's mazdoor naka, jostling with daily wagers like him, each trying to get noticed by contractors who may have jobs to hire them for the day, he thought he got lucky when someone picked him. But it wasn't for the usual repair or cleaning work that he had done in the past.
How desi troll armies have built a coded language of abuse
They outwit algorithms by using vernacular slurs, changing spellings, or replacing letters with punctuation marks and symbols, say experts
Parted by Partition, reunited by two Pakistani YouTubers
200 reunions and counting…The duo behind Punjabi Lehar has made it their mission to help people from both sides of the border track down long-lost kin and friends
How 2021 changed life forever for India’s Covid orphans
10-year-old Aastha retreats into silence, 11-year-old Harsh buries his head in books and a 3-year-old doesn’t even know his parents are not coming back. Mohua Das speaks to their new caregivers
Plight of city's homeless women that call for attention & action
The rape and murder of a pavement dweller at Sakinaka in September had trained the spotlight on Mumbai’s homeless women. If many wind up on footpaths and under flyovers for lack of shelters and affordable housing, others are fleeing abuse, forsaken by families or mentally ill who lost their way. Mohua Das tracked a day in the life of this invisible lot risking their lives under the open skies
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