Anindita Sengupta

A whole gender is getting exterminated. It is happening while we, as a nation, slumber.
- Gita Aravamudan

Gita Aravamudan’s book Disappearing Daughters: The Tragedy of Female Foeticide was recently published by Penguin Books. A scorchingly honest and compelling account of female foeticide in India, the book is an important and valuable study of the problem. Aravamudan has used investigative reporting to explore different aspects of female foeticide, its beginnings and its backlash, the ways it grows and how it can be stemmed. Disappearing Daughters combines interviews, case studies, analysis of statistics and history to present a comprehensive and very human face to this “holocaust”. Continue reading

openDemocracy, an independent online magazine, is hosting openSummit featuring the views of women activists, academics and journalists from a variety of organizations worldwide in the run up to G8. The idea is to prevent women’s perspectives to decision-makers at G8. Of course, who knows whether any of them will read this but this can’t stop us from trying, can it? Please drop by to read and contact them if you want to contribute something. Continue reading

I am dismayed, angry, heartbroken, and positively blue in the face. I am talking about the Vadodara incident, of course. But I am not surprised. I am not surprised that freedom (artistic and otherwise) was curtailed in such a disgusting, dramatic show of bluster. That legal machinery was used to do it. That the Vice Chancellor of a reputed university would choose to support goons rather than the Dean and the students. Continue reading

It’s interesting how both noise and quiet can be so sustaining. Last week, I went for a NWM meeting and then, because it was a sunshiny day and I had spent a lazy afternoon under the trees (albeit amid the flies) at the Press Club, I decided to continue the mood of green and sun by dropping in at Chitrakala Parishad. Going from an animated discussion with a diverse group of women to the weekday emptiness of the art school was an exercise in juxtaposition.

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About two months ago, eminent tech blogger Kathy Sierra decided to stop blogging because of the horrific death threat comments she received, many of them explicitly sexual and violent. Last month, Jessica Valenti from Feministing talked about how the web became a sexists’ paradise in her column at the Guardian. She mentioned her own experience with sexism in the blogosphere as well.

All of this leads me to wonder when this is going to catch up with us here in India. Continue reading