Uncle and mother, both Canadian citizens of Indian origin, accused by Indian authorities of killing daughter in 2000
Canada has extradited the mother and uncle of a woman killed 19 years ago to face justice in India for their alleged roles in her honor killing.
The body of Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu was found with her throat slit in June 2000 in Punjab state. She was 25 at the time of her death.
Continue reading...Kanakadurga, 39, allegedly beaten and ousted from home for entering Sabarimala shrine
A woman who defied violent protests to worship at a centuries-old south Indian shrine that banned females of “menstruating age” has been spurned by her family, attacked by relatives and locked out of her home.
On New Year’s Day, Kanakadurga, 39, along with Bindu Ammini, became the first women to enter the inner sanctum of Kerala state’s Sabarimala temple, one of the holiest Hindu sites in the country.
Continue reading...Komal Hadala’s hellish treks to relieve herself inspired a campaign that left her Indian village flushed with success
The day after her wedding, Komal Hadala was shaken awake at 4am by her mother-in-law. They joined a group of women who were waiting outside the house, in Nithora village, Uttar Pradesh.
“It was the time when they went outdoors to relieve themselves in the fields before men started appearing. I couldn’t believe it. It was total darkness outside. And it had been raining,” says Hadala.
Continue reading...Prohibition makes our world a more dangerous place, trapping people in poverty
I have spoken out on many issues during my career, but there is one that leaders in poorer countries passionately lobby me to campaign on: the prohibition of drugs.
The “war on drugs” is harming the most vulnerable and criminalising poverty. It is not a war on drugs – despite decades of prohibition, drug production and consumption is on the increase globally – it is a war on the poor. Prohibition damages people and the planet.
Continue reading...As an estimated 15m Hindus gather at convergence of holy rivers in India, the huge lost-and-found centres go digital
Day and night, through crackling loudspeakers, the announcements ring out. “It is Babu speaking,” says a shrill voice. “I have lost my wallet and brother. Please come here the moment you hear this.”
“Lal Ram is here,” a woman says a few times. “Come and collect him from the yellow tower.”
Continue reading...Thought to be the world’s largest human gathering, more than 20 million Hindu pilgrims ritually bathed on the opening day of the festival
Continue reading...The next 15 megacities #6: New facilities by the Sabarmati will provide Ahmedabad with much-needed public space, but at what cost?
As the sun dips below the horizon, young lovers make themselves more comfortable on benches overlooking the Sabarmati river. Walkers stroll along the concrete promenades, and mothers enjoy a moment of respite under newly planted saplings while their children play in the adjoining gardens.
Few Ahmedabad residents could have imagined this scene a couple of decades ago. Back then the Gujarati city’s tidal river banks were lined with slum housing – precariously constructed on land polluted by industrial effluent and untreated sewage, and home to some of the most marginalised communities in the city.
Continue reading...Poverty and caste discrimination mean that children in Sagar Gram are being groomed by their own families for abuse
Many families in India still mourn the birth of a girl. But when Leena was born, people celebrated.
Sagar Gram, her village in central India, is unique that way. Girls outnumber boys. When a woman marries, it is the groom’s family that pays the dowry. Women are Sagar Gram’s breadwinners. When they are deemed old enough, perhaps at the age of 11, most are expected to start doing sex work.
Continue reading...Girl killed with help of a butcher friend, say police in Bihar in so-called ‘honour killing’
Police in eastern India say a teenager who was found dead this week with her body dismembered and mutilated was murdered by her family in a so-called “honour” killing.
The body of the 16-year old from Gaya, a city in Bihar state, was discovered on Sunday. Pictures of her mutilated remains were widely shared on social media along with claims she had been doused in acid, sparking protests and candlelit vigils in the city.
Continue reading...Patients awaiting treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Science are living in tents and on pavements for months at a time as the centre reels under the weight of demand
The night-time cold in New Delhi is biting. As the temperature plunges, Alam Ansari’s twin daughters, born prematurely, have only their parents’ body heat to keep them warm while they huddle in a crowded tent on the road outside the capital’s top hospital.
They are not alone. Each day, about 8,000 people from across the country queue outside the outpatients department for treatment. Mainly from poorer backgrounds, they sleep in tents or on the ground.
Continue reading...The organisers of a major Indian science conference said they were concerned by speakers citing religious texts and ideas at the event
The organisers of a major Indian science conference distanced themselves on Sunday from speakers who used the prestigious event to dismiss Einstein’s discoveries and claim ancient Hindus invented stem cell research.
The Indian Scientific Congress Association expressed “serious concern” as the unorthodox remarks aired by prominent academics at its annual conference attracted condemnation and ridicule.
Continue reading...Narendra Modi accused of being afraid of media after rare interview that failed to ask tough questions
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has been accused of being afraid of the media, after consenting to a rare interview – just one of a handful in four years as PM – on New Year’s Day in which he answered a range of questions that critics compared to “free-hit deliveries” in cricket.
Related: India: world's biggest election has suddenly become competitive
Continue reading...Two women have visited a Hindu temple in Kerala after India's supreme court lifted a centuries-old ban. They had tried to enter last month but were stopped by protesters
Continue reading...Event comes as hundreds and thousands of women form a 380-mile human chain in support of gender equality
Two women have become the first to enter a Hindu temple in India’s southern state of Kerala after the supreme court lifted a centuries-old ban on women.
The temple was later “purified” by priests at the famous Sabarimala temple, which does not permit menstruating women inside. They closed the temple for several hours to conduct ancient rituals to remove the “polluting” female presence.
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands of women have formed a 620km-long human chain across a southern Indian state in support of a court order overturning a partial ban on women entering one of Hinduism’s holiest temples
Continue reading...PM Narenda Modi weakened after Rahul Gandhi’s Congress ends 2018 with string of regional victories
The world’s largest exercise in democracy looms in 2019. In the beachside towns of Kerala state, the mountain villages of the Himalayas and across the dusty cities of the Gangetic plain, an estimated 850 million people will cast their votes in India’s national election sometime between March and May. And the race just got competitive.
A few months ago the prime minister, Narendra Modi, looked invincible. His party had followed its thumping national election win in 2014 with a run of victories in India’s largest states. The Congress party, which ushered India into independence 70 years ago and had been its default ruler since, was reduced to a rump, with leaders from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) boasting the country would soon be “Congress-mukt” (Congress-free).
Continue reading...