While the Indian government was celebrating its 64^th Republic Day with pomp and grandeur, most young Indians were thinking that Republic day has lost its sense. The reason, they say, is that laws have not been revamped and do not ensure to justice for the victims of social crimes. Using social media as a platform to voice their protests and demands, the youth ofIndia has unified in one spirit and is  showcasing its demands all across the country.

Evan Grae Davis’s new film entitled It’s a Girl has been a great success since its launch in September 2012. The film has hit a nerve amongst those in India and China advocating dignity and equality for women. Indeed the film has become part of a campaign on Twitter and Facebook which has “gone viral” – to use the language of social media networks. Meanwhile, the film has been screened for lawmakers in Europe and is enjoying great success with universities and NGOs in the battle to end gendercide. WomenTalkOnline’s reporter Roma Rajpal had the opportunity to speak to director Evan Grae Davis. 

Anjum Hasan is a young Indian writer who won the Man Literary Prize in 2009 for her book “Neti, Neti”. Her latest book “Difficult Pleasures” has been listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. “Difficult Pleasures” is a collection of short stories in the form of a montage of characters who go about their busy lives in big, anonymous metropolitan cities – Mumbai,Bangalore,Calcutta. Anjum Hasan casts a spell on these characters and they bare their deepest, darkest emotions to the readers. There is rebellion and disappointment, love and melancholy and the reader experiences the intimate emotions of her characters. Hasan delves into the emotional spaces of the characters and bares all without any inhibitions leaving one with more questions than one had bargained for. 

DW’s WomenTalkOnline had the opportunity to speak to her:

 Two little girls were sitting on a crochet table cloth spread under a tree in the garden. A woman was sitting on a green wooden bench nearby, multitasking as she talked on a cell phone and kept an eye on the girls simultaneously. Sitting some 50 meters away from them, I could hear the woman titter. The person on the other end of the phone was probably cracking jokes. The sound of her laughter put an inadvertent smile on my face.

She is Goddess Lakshmi personified as a bride walking through her husband’s threshold. She is the face of Goddess Saraswati giving the wisdom of knowledge to her children. She is a Devi as her husband’s strength. India is in awe of its goddesses. Temples are not the only places she is worshipped in. Men throng to film theatres to worship her on the silver

‘Woman’- what does this word signify? There seems to be an old definition and a new definition. Let’s take a look at both. The old one refers to a woman as the symbol of dignity, respect, a homemaker, some one who is dependent; and the modern definition includes words like independent, attractive, bold, equal etc. But do these definitions actually describe

It’s been a very bad year indeed for women in India. As the world settles into the New Year, India’s daughters are mourning the death of their “braveheart Nirbhaya,” the 23-year-old who was brutally raped and has now succumbed to her injuries.  This is symptomatic of the agony, pain, humiliation and wretchedness that Indian women suffered in 2012.