The more we read about the status of women in mainstream media the more we realize that the discussions around equality, rights, choice, value, opinion, violence, dignity, respect, power… all empty noise.
What remains is unfailing patriarchy. This has not diminished in the least, and forget about prevalent norms in South Asian cultures, or cultures that are still struggling with the idea of women on top, women are the fairer sex and so despite, and possibly …

By FERNANDO HENRIQUE CARDOSO and RUTH DREIFUSS
This week, representatives from many nations will gather at the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna to determine the appropriate course of the international response to illicit drugs. Delegates will debate multiple resolutions while ignoring a truth that goes to the core of current drug policy: human rights abuses in the war on drugs are widespread and systematic.
Consider these numbers: Hundreds of thousands of people locked …

About a week ago a baby in the US was apparently cured of HIV.  The use of post exposure prophylaxis, i.e. a high dosage of antiretroviral therapy is not necessarily revolutionary in 2013, but the disappearance of HIV in the baby is a welcome development. In fact, antiretroviral therapy as a pre-exposure prophylaxis is also now in use with people thought to be at higher risk than others, and appears to reduce the chances of …

ACT I
Scene I:
(A young couple is sitting on a couch in an apartment by sea. They are looking away from each other.)
Man: I didn’t know.
Woman: When I’m angry you’ve got to know! You’ve just got to know! I’m tired of this. Your school and matches and drinking. I hate big matches.
Man: You’re just crazy.
Woman: The first day, you called. Once! To tell me you got there. You can’t just go, get drunk and disappear.
Man: I …

Today I called a government office to get permission to do an event to raise awareness on violence against women. Over the telephone this is what I heard.
Telephone ringing
Man answers the telephone.
Aybowan
මහත්මයා මම කතා කරන්නේ අපි කාන්තා හිංසනය පිළිබද දැනුවත් කිරීමේ වැඩසටහනක් කරන්න අවසර ඉල්ලා ලිපියක් යොමු කරලා තියෙනවා. ඒ ලිපියට මොකද වුණේ කියලා දැන ගන්නයි කතා කරන්නේ.
Hello… Sir I’m calling about a letter of permission for an awareness programme on violence against women that …

Published: January 7, 2013
THIRTY-TWO years ago, when I was 17 and living in Bombay, I was gang raped and nearly killed. Three years later, outraged at the silence and misconceptions around rape, I wrote a fiery essay under my own name describing my experience for an Indian women’s magazine. It created a stir in the women’s movement — and in my family — and then it quietly disappeared. Then, last week, I looked at my e-mail and there …