Women in rural India continue to lack access to proper family planning services. This issue came under spotlight with the tragic death of 16 women who were sterilized in a health camp in the northeastern State of Chhattisgarh in November 2014. The doctor who had performed the surgeries confessed in an interview that he had a history of completing 200-300 surgeries a day. It was also reported that women were given no follow up care.

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Polish artist, Agata Oleksiak, also known as Olek, uses bright colored crochet artworks as installations in cities to highlight political and cultural issues. Recently, Olek was in Delhi as a part of the St+art Festival, decorating a homeless shelter with her crochet installation. Local women assisted Olek to create a 40ft x 30 ft yarn to bring attention to the night shelter in Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi. Olek, a self-taught crochet artist uses her work to express her support of women’s rights, sexual equality and freedom of expression. WTO Blogger Roma Rajpal Weiß asked her a few questions about her project and experience in India.

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An email to an Indian student from a German professor rejecting his application because of the ‘rape problem’ in India has gone viral. While many people criticized the attitude of the professor, some focused on a different aspect of the problem.

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On the occasion of International Women’s Day, NDTV, India’s largest English news channel, was due to broadcast British filmmaker Leslee Udwin’s documentary India’s Daughter. The film is based on the brutal murder and gangrape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, Jyoti Singh also known as Nirbhaya which means ‘The Fearless One’.

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In 2012 an Indian student was violently raped on a moving bus in Delhi and died of horrific internal injuries. Leslee Udwin spoke to one of the rapists on death row while spending two years making a documentary about the case, “India’s Daughter”. But now the Indian government has banned the broadcast of the film. Read also other women’s news that made it to the headlines.

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Pooja Behara (name changed), 16, would probably have never realised that she was suffering from a sexually transmitted disease (STD) had Sabita Buta, a counsellor with a local non government organisation, not come into her cramped slum in Bhubaneswar, the state capital of Odisha, to talk to the adolescent children about HIV/AIDS and the importance of safe sex, sometime early last year.

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Here’s a round-up of women’s news that made it to the headlines. Did we miss
something? Let us know through your comments.

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