Citizens Report

Investigations

LetsTalkChange

Making dreams: Giving girls a chance to study and play

[By Roshin Varghese ] Mysore (Women’s Feature Service) – Saturdays are very special for Javeriya, 17. Come noon, she quickly changes from her traditional ‘salwar kameez’ into track pants and ...

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Let’s salute those who are doing something positive

[By Mari Marcel Thekaekara|New Internationalist] Something to cheer about. In the midst of doom and gloom, I attended a Vikalp Sangam or ‘Confluence of ideas’. It was a meeting not ...

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Teenage Girls Generate Wealth To Secure Health

[By Ajitha Menon] Ranchi (WFS) – ‘Kal Baisakhi’, or Nor’westers, originate in the Chhotanagpur Plateau, in and around areas like Ranchi and Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, in the months of April ...

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Defending the right to watch violent porn – how can that be justice for April Jones?

[By Mari Marcel Thekaekara| New Internationalist] Rape and sexual violence in India pop up everyday, routinely now, in our newspapers. People have become blasé about ordinary rape. Yes. I did just ...

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Rights

Distorted media reports leads to Khurja woman being abandoned by family

[By Narendra Kaushik] Khurja:  The case of Sarita (name changed), a housewife in Gangthla Village in Khurja sub division of Bulandshahr District, is an example of how media and vernacular ...

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I interviewed convicted rapists in New Delhi – and then found one of their young victims

[By Madhumita Pandey] A ten-year-old girl was recently denied an abortion by the Supreme Court of India. She was a victim of rape, which she alleges was perpetrated by her ...

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Indian orphans sexually abused by western paedophile ring

|By Mari Marcel Thekaekara | New Internationalist | Goa, about 40 years ago, was just Goa. Home to a laid-back people who spread all over the world because the Portuguese ...

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Whose battle is it anyway?

The women and children of the Indian tribal population are trapped in deadly crossfire between the state and the Maoists. Forget gender equality: sexual abuse is rampant. |By Pratibha Singh| ...

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Military Affairs

Liberation War-Historicising a Personal Narrative

|By Col Nadir Ali (Retd) , Pakistan Army|   Former Pakistani Col Nadir Ali’s talks of his experiences from 1971 in Bangladesh at the BRAC University in Dhaka. Historicizing a ...

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Doongar Singh – A Pakistani Brigadier Looks Back to an Indian JCO

|By Brigadier Mehboob Qadir (R)| It was mid 1972. We had just arrived in Ranchi from Agra, badly shaken and bruised, after a fateful train journey, during which we lost ...

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Repealing AFSPA – Is that the need of the hour?

By Riti Sinha 55 years ago, in the face of rising political dissent in the North-east, India decided to add to its laws, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). ...

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Casualties of an alternate war : of suicides and fratricides in the Indian Armed Forces

[By Adfar Shah] “In yet another fratricidal incident, a trooper shot dead his five colleagues before shooting himself with his service weapon in an Army camp in Safapora area of ...

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WomenWrite

Scaling New Horizons With Daring Dives

Delhi (WFS) – Archana Sardana, a 40-year-old adventure enthusiast, is India’s first woman civilian Building Aerial Span Earth (BASE) jumper, often jumping from a bridge of over 3,600 metres (12,000 ...

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Hounded and harassed – but Sharmila Seyyid isn’t giving up

[By Mari Marcel Thekaekara | New Internationalist] My morning paper brought me news which was nauseating and alarming, yet which filled me with hope, all at the same time. A gutsy Sri Lankan ...

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The art of being a good Indian woman

Yamuna Matheswaran ‘listens in’ to what her country is saying about women’s place in society. Hello there, self-declared modern Indian woman. Will you survive the beast that is Indian society? ...

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Coolie No. 15: Jaipur Junction’s lady porter

Not discouraged or disheartened; resolutely courageous, she sprints up and down stair cases each day, loading taxis, chasing customers and carrying upto 30 kilograms on her head. Working among 200 men ...

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