In the untamed interior villages of the Wild East that is Bihar, caste and community based Panchayats have a sway of their own, often imposing archaic forms of justice on the communities. Mahila Samakhya women often challenge patriarchy and superstition, and undermine those who want to use distorted religion or superstition to control communities. Now […]
Smriti Irani, who heads the Ministry of HRD will soon have another major headache. The clandestine move to scuttle the country’s most successful women’s education and empowerment programme, Mahila Samakhya, may backfire, as lakhs of rural women from some 11 states have initiated a postcard campaign to demand answers from the Modi government. Representatives from […]
Perhaps the largest of India’s women’s liberal education and empowerment movements, fuelled by the government if India in 1990, is being quietly throttled to death by the Narendra Modi government. Mahila Samakhya may end up singing its swan song even as it celebrates its silver jubilee year, with the centre first procrastinating, and then reluctantly […]
Elder women are the most prone to destitution, and the government is partly to blame for the abetment of elder abuse, says Bihar Mahila Samakhya State Project Officer Keerti. “The way the government has a focus on adolescent girls, and young mothers, why doesn’t the government have a programme for elderly women on the same […]
The Narendra Modi government’s decision to do away with the Planning Commission and start a NITI Ayog had put the fate of a pioneering institution with over 2 lakh grassroots women members in a tizzy. The fate of the Mahila Samakhya programme, Bihar’s first and most effective movement for women’s empowerment linked to the state’s […]
