Vimla Bahuguna (1932- 2025), the veteran environmentalist, combined grounded constructive work with far-reaching sociopolitical activism. From her home in the Himalayas, she built up resistance to deforestation, big dams, destructive mining, commercial forestry, violence and abuse. During the 1970s,along with thousands of local women, she created the Chipko movement, which reverberated across the globe. Today,…
Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Prize, and 51 million Trees The Child Who Was Told Not to Disturb the Fig Tree In the hills of Nyeri, in central Kenya, a fig tree grew near the home of a young girl’s family. Her grandmother told her it was sacred and must not be disturbed. As a child,…
Picture the scene: a woman with a PhD in Nuclear Physics from the University of Madras, sitting in a modest room in Kanchipuram back in 2002, her mind turning over the problem of child labour. At first glance, the leap is almost surreal. You’ve got atomic particles on one side, rural kids out of school…
Shanta Toofani (1929-2011) was an unusual social worker, activist and educator. She completed her schooling at the age of 34, while running a household single-handedly and bringing up seven children. Having educated herself despite all odds, she was committed to educating others, with fierce love. For several decades this tiny woman stood tall, teaching children…
In many Indian homes, behind closed doors and polite smiles, there exists a silence that is rarely questioned. It is the silence of women who are told that once married, their bodies are no longer entirely their own. We grow up believing that marriage is sacred—a bond built on love, trust, and companionship. Weddings are…
Haryana’s sex ratio has fallen to 910 despite years of government campaigns and CSR efforts, revealing that awareness alone has failed to address deep-rooted son preference. Real change requires tackling economic, legal, and social structures driving gender bias. A Number Nobody Wanted to Talk About Start with the arithmetic. Of the 516,402 children born in…
Toilet: Ek Prem Katha uses a simple love story to expose how lack of sanitation affects dignity, especially for women, turning a personal issue into a social conversation. It highlights that true love and progress begin when basic respect and dignity are no longer negotiable within the home. Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, released in 2017…
Women’s empowerment is not just about access but about agency, control, and decision-making. Across rural and urban India, true empowerment remains constrained by deeply rooted structural and social barriers. What if women’s empowerment is not about lifting women up rather about examining what has been holding them down? Who is being empowered? How? Under what…
The article highlights how older women remain overlooked in gender equality efforts, especially in ESG and CSR frameworks, despite facing compounded lifelong inequalities. It calls for inclusive policies and corporate action to address their economic security, care needs, and social protection. CSW70’s Ministerial Round Table specifically addressed older women as an emerging focus area. Women…
Unpaid care work, worth $10.8 trillion globally, remains invisible in economic systems despite sustaining the workforce and corporate productivity. Investing in care infrastructure is essential for gender equality, higher female participation, and inclusive economic growth. Unpaid care work produces $10.8 trillion in annual economic value. CSW70 called for care infrastructure investment. The corporate sector extracts…
