'People-work'

  Ever Noticed That Modi Just Can’t Bring Himself To Say, ‘Mitron, Muslims Are Equal Citizens?’ It is now palpable – the Modi government’s moral paralysis is shaping the destiny of the people of India. It is a time therefore, for contemplative pause; and in equal measure for constructive outrage against how diversity as an organising principle of contemporary Indian society is being challenged, thereby influencing our capacities and intentions to co-exist as one people. (And remember, there is not a shred of evidence from any part of the world, that tax reforms unite people, relentless advertising notwithstanding.) Even before nightfall on the very day that Modi condemned the killing of 15 year old Junaid, Alimuddin Ansari was lynched to death in another part of India, every gruesome detail of which was recorded by the perpetrators, and widely circulated, short of being live telecast. The return of the primitive pleasure in violence and cruelty, all in the name of the greater...

  Has UNAIDS Been Caught Napping? Look who is Paying the Price for the UN’s Political Fence Sitting   I was hoping I would never have to write this. That no one would have to write this, ever. UNAIDS and civil society campaigners have had a special relationship of trust and collaboration. But now that relationship seems to have chipped. Irreparably, even.   Two shockingly opposite statements have emerged after the adoption of the 2016 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS  by Member States of the UN at the recently concluded UN General Assembly Special Session last week.   Michel Sidibe, Executive Director of UNAIDS, was quoted in the New York Times  saying that he felt ‘the declaration was something to be proud of’.   In sharp contrast, campaigners from across the world have called the Political Declaration a ‘high level failure’. In  a scathing statement  issued by the global coalitions of civil society organisations,...

  SDGs are our dreams gone official I t is because we dream of a perfect future is why the present becomes worth the fight. Exactly one year ago in September 2015, all nations of the world adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the UN general Assembly. At this gathering of world leaders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi endorsed the #globalgoals , committing himself and all of us to their achievement by 2030. And this is what is dazzling about these 17 new goals and their 169 targets. Three generations, including ours, have lived through the struggles and victories of the last hundred years, but it is only now for the first time that we have collectively started dreaming about the world through the eyes of a future generation, our children. What kind of world will your little daughter find herself in when she is a young adult? Will she be surrounded by prosperity, beauty, peace, dignity and equality for them, or will she find herself struggling in a broken planet ...

  One year since the SDGs – how committed is the Indian Parliament? Sustainable development goals (SDGs) are proof that the conversation on the intersectionality between economic, social and environmental change has finally come of age and is now hard to ignore. These new set of 17 global goals, along with their 169 targets are not just transformative in their ambition for the last person in the queue. They are in fact inviting us to participate in the tectonic shift in development thinking, to step out of our comfort zones to examine new solutions and new ways of doing business. And lets remember, these goals were generated through four years of participation of millions of people around the world and not by a bunch of experts huddled in a basement.   However, in India, the discussion on pathways to achieve the goals have, over the past year, become the domain of central and state level bureaucrats who haven’t amassed any significant glory for their ability and inclinat...

  India's Warped Idea Of The 'Demographic Dividend': Extracting From The Youth, But Not Investing In Them India is all set to test the assumption that the youth bulge is a source of demographic dividend and an economic advantage. The assumption is that greater the number of people in an economy who work, save and pay taxes, higher will be the economic growth. With 356 million 10-24 year-olds, India has the world’s largest youth population in the world.   Three young girls seem to have tested the assumption with their bodies. Their verdict is that all things remaining the same, demographic dividend may be on life support.     A fifteen year old government school student in Ganjam gave birth in her classroom. She bled in the bathroom, confused, she ran back to her class, but before her class teacher could get help, she delivered a child right there. The infant later died. The young girl went home with her parents. She will now recuperate at the mercy of a qu...

  HIV and Sexuality – Has India Missed the Bus?  HIV remains exceptional in that it carries the seemingly immutable burden of being synonymous with immoral behaviour. Open and safe conversations on sexual rights and freedoms in the context of both disease and pleasure should have been the method of decoupling HIV from prevailing notions of morality. India’s HIV programme over the past 25 years chose not to do this. In September 1998 , to the utter horror of HIV activists, the Supreme Court of India pronounced the following in a judgement – “AIDS is the product of undisciplined sexual impulse.” It was hearing the case of Mr. “X” v. Hospital “Z”. The appellant Mr. “X” was a person living with HIV whose confidentiality had been breached by hospital “Z”. The appellant sought damages for breach of confidentiality, which had led to his marriage being cancelled, and ostracism by his community. This judgement, till it was revoked in 2003 after an outcry from activists and la...

This is Ruchika holding up her class 6 project on 'water conservation' which got the highest marks in her class. Encouraged by this victory, she has since made projects on topics such as dances of India, health benefits of sports and types of food. She walks into the living room, where I also have my work desk, and announces the topic of her latest project, saying "Mujhey information nikaal ke do (Please pull out the information for me) ". She starts the conversation with a half apologetic smile and an already-victorious glint in eye. And within minutes, as the google search throws up stuff, her face turns intent, her eyes flit across the screen with an urgency and speed as though if she were not fast enough all this information may just go away out of her reach, never to return. Then she selects what she finds useful. Takes a print of a funny illustration and laughs out loud. Then she puts her finger on the screen on a word she can neither pronounce nor ...

The whole lame and twisted logic to now defend the fundamentally undemocratic process of snatching farmers' land without their consent and without a social impact assessment is to say that a majority of respondents in a CSDS survey would rather not farm under the current conditions.

In the bitter cold of January 20th,  Roobina, a young woman , was forced to deliver her baby on a pavement in Bhopal because she was not able to pay the thousand-rupee bribe allegedly demanded at a free government-run hospital. The baby boy died minutes after being born. While hospital authorities have denied all allegations and the matter is being investigated by the local police, the incident is deeply symptomatic of a failing health system and its unsuspecting victims. Gandhi may have someone like Roobina and her dead infant in mind when he gave the famous dictate to the drafters of the Indian Constitution, saying “Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man you have seen, and ask yourself if this step you contemplate is going to be any use to him.” In another India, far from Roobina’s, the private healthcare industry is valued at $40 billion and is projected to grow to $280 billion by 2020. The current growth rate of this perennially and most rapidly growing area of...