Blogs

Around the world, worries about falling birth rates are putting women’s freedom to choose at risk. But having children must remain a woman’s decision. When Delhi’s Chief Minister says women are not baby-making machines, she is absolutely right. She was talking about her government’s Lakshmi Yojana scheme, where women with more than three children may…

World over, women’s autonomy is endangered by fertility panics. But their choice must prevail When Delhi’s CM says that women are not babymaking machines, she’s bang on. Sure, this is in the context of her govt’s Lakshmi Yojana scheme, where denying it to those with more than three children could be part of a broader…

Unemployment is root of youth unrest. Filling govt vacancies, instead of giving freebies, is the solution You can look at last month’s student protest in Delhi, and the ongoing protest in Ranchi, in isolation. Or, you can regard them as part of a continuum, reflecting growing youth angst. Hardly six months ago, young people were…

Listening to ecosystems is different from seeing them. But the diversity loss hits as painfully Where did humanity get music from? Likely from natural sounds and rhythms, which were once our only acoustic inspiration, and which remain the baseline for what we hear in today’s remaining wild places. This is the theory expanded in The…

When every God is in your WhatsApp group When Neeraj Chopra was hurling the javelin at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, I hailed out to Balasubramaniam. When he attempts a gold at the Nagoya Asian Games next month, I will have Ramasubramaniam on my lips. I don’t know when it began. Perhaps on that unforgettable June…

The cow stands for fertility, prosperity, and life, and is often called a mother-ancestor. While Hindus venerate the cow as mother, go mata, ancient Egyptians identified goddess Hathor with the cow; her image was used in amulets to ward off evil and bring good luck. In Greece, goddess Europa’s brother Cadmus followed a sacred cow with moon-shaped…

TIA: This is Africa! This nomenclature and abbreviation happens to be the refrain of the Hollywood construct, “ Blood Diamonds” where in the male protagonist in a drinking joint cheekily admits the fact that he is a weapons dealer from America who supplies weaponry and warring equipment to all probable combat sides ranging from the…

There is a road near my house where the speed limit changes three times in two or three kilometres, for reasons known only to the municipal engineer who approved it, possibly in a previous birth. Every driver treats the signage the way we treat most Indian law: as a suggestion, an opening bid in a…

No society approves of abuse. And yet, it exists in every culture. Not only that, society seems to need abuse as an institution, otherwise, it wouldn’t be so universal and timeless. Interestingly, there isn’t too much inventiveness when it comes to the people mentioned in these abuses. Mothers, and in India sisters, become the butt…

Why India’s next development dividend lies in connecting livelihoods with water, sanitation and health India may be sitting on one of the world’s largest—and least appreciated—development assets. It is neither a highway network nor a digital platform. It is a vast institutional ecosystem of rural women, built patiently over more than a decade through the…