SPRF
ABSTRACT Muslim women donning hijab, burqa, or the veil has been a contentious issue and a source of discrimination against them worldwide. In India, this issue resurfaced in December after the Udupi Women’s PU College, a pre-university college in Karnataka, denied entry to several girls since they were wearing hijabs and ‘disrupting’ the college uniform. […]
ABSTRACT In 2021 ‘Fenty Beauty’, a leading makeup brand owned by the pop-star Rihanna, was criticised for using mica from mines in Giridih and Koderma, Jharkhand (Sirur, 2021). The news brought into limelight the discourse around industries thriving on cheap raw materials, especially ones acquired from illegal mica mines through child labour. The issue of […]
ABSTRACT For more than six decades now, Nagaland has been under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act [AFSPA] 1958. Despite the violence and impunity, the act grants the security forces, it is still in force. To bring peace to the region the Framework Agreement was signed in 2015 between the Government of India and the […]
ABSTRACT Rohingya refugee camps in India witnessed the highest number of fires in 2021 than any other year prior. Most refugee-camp fires demonstrated a peculiar trend of beginning at midnight, often on a disputed property, preceded by threats of eviction or bigotry but said to be the result of bad urban planning. With refugee settlement […]
Authored by: Barkha Tripathi, Co-Founder, The Zero Period Edited by: Riya Singh Rathore and Avishi Gupta ABSTRACT India is the second-most populous country globally, with the largest youth population between ages 10 to 24. Despite a young and culturally diverse demography, India has consistently deprioritised knowledge, awareness, and acceptance of comprehensive sexuality education [CSE] […]
ABSTRACT In October 2020, India and South Africa submitted a proposal to the TRIPS Council at the WTO to waive the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights [TRIPS] Agreement for the prevention, containment, and treatment of COVID-19. This set of intellectual property laws, established by the WTO, have historically limited developing countries from accessing […]
ABSTRACT The participation of women in the workforce aids not only their own socio-economic progress, agency, and welfare but also the progress of societies and countries. Despite an improvement in women’s education and health outcomes, India’s formal and informal female labour force participation (FLFP) has declined in the last two decades. While the COVID-19 pandemic […]
ABSTRACT Despite carrying the disproportionate burden of poor Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services, women are often excluded from policy planning and implementation efforts. Policies and programmes in WASH must not only be gender-sensitive, but also challenge gender norms, power inequities, and empower women to drive social transformation. In this context, this paper assesses how […]
ABSTRACT The open incineration of paddy crop residue, or stubble burning, in the north Indian states of Punjab and Haryana has become a recurring issue every winter. As pollution caused by stubble burning contributes to the Delhi Smog, the two events are almost always hyphenated in the public discourse, highlighting the former as primarily a […]
ABSTRACT India accounts for one in every four tuberculosis (TB) cases around the globe. The fact that TB is easily transmitted to people with pre-existing conditions like HIV/AIDS, diabetes, and lung impairment, among other immunity deteriorating factors, is concerning in contemporary times. As India leaps to overcome the USA and become the nation most infected […]
ABSTRACT The Government of India recently invited private sector investments in Indian Railways, citing the need to modernise the Railways and reduce the demand-supply gap in passenger transport. In this context, this paper attempts to analyse the reasons for the Railways’ crisis-ridden present-day reality and whether going down the path of privatisation would proffer a […]
Authored by – Sitara Srinivas Edited by – Kausumi Saha Part 3 of a three-part series on the Ship Recycling Industry In India. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. ABSTRACT The next few years are predicted to see a boom in the ship recycling industry, for reasons that include the financial slowdown at […]
ABSTRACT Scheduled Tribes are one of the most disadvantaged, marginalised groups in India. Traditionally dwelling in forests, land is the basis of not just their livelihood, but also their collective cultural identity. However, alienation of tribal populations from lands they have occupied for generations has become a common practice across the country. The development rhetoric […]
ABSTRACT The agriculture sector in India has witnessed continued distress in recent years with net investments in agricultural assets decreasing along with the sector’s share in the economy. Farmers have been grappling with stagnant incomes in the absence of true price realisation at the farmgate level, while paying a high retail price for other commodities […]