To focus only on the sexual politics misses the critical dimension of the unfolding debates in India about secularism and sovereignty.
What must be understood is that mental bandwidth is a limited resource which is used for everything. So what happens if we can make some things, like banking, easier for the poor ?
Cultural justifications for upholding Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalizes homosexuality are untenable, given the colonial antecedents of the legislation, the cultural heterogeneity of the populations it was imposed upon, and the liberal sexual mores which prevailed among many s
To fight the chilling effect created by new laws on foreign funding, Indian human rights NGOs need to develop support for funding among citizens. Though difficult, in the long run groups that have public legitimacy will be more difficult for governments to control and suppress. A contribution to t
The election results which have just come in have been stunning. BJP won thumping majorities in Madhya Pradesh (165/230), Rajasthan (162/199) and a comfortable majority in Chhattisgarh (49/90).
Politicians are no longer middle class or working class. Rather, they are a political class. They form, or appear to form, a tight in-group from which millions of citizens feel excluded. What is the poor citizen to do?
The right not to be enslaved is one of the two absolute human rights that cannot be violated on any ground whatsoever. However, 65 years after its denunciation, slavery continues to resist the corpus of human rights. Why the asymmetry ?
It was only in 1990 that one of twentieth century India’s finest minds, principal author of its constitution and campaigner against caste oppression, B.R. Ambedkar, was conferred this honour, 34 years after his death.
For adivasis in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, economic exploitation and social degradation go hand in hand. This interview with Madhuri Krishnaswamy of JADS, an adivasi organisation, reveals routine police protection of entrenched power hierarchies – and the political confidence foun
Is it not contradictory that Modi stands exonerated of any role in the pogrom of over 3,000 Muslims in Gujarat whose Chief Minister he was, whereas even the construction of a toilet or fixing of a lamppost is squarely attributed to Modi’s personal achievement in the area of development?
New technologies have the capacity to both emancipate and control individuals and their choices. Our pre-occupation should then concern the intrinsic moral values of users and their commitment to democratic citizenship and human rights.
