India

India to the UN Security Council: There Will Be No Alliances

August 2, 2020

With five months to go before India takes its elected seat on the Security Council for 2021-2022, the country’s foreign minister says it will stay true to its founding tradition of nonalignment and not take sides with any big power. “Nonalignment was a term of a particular era and geopolitical landscape,” the minister, Subrahmanyam …

India, Security Council

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Top UN Rights Experts Call Kashmir Blackout ‘Collective Punishment’

August 25, 2019

by Barbara Crossette

As a communications shutdown is still depriving people in the predominantly Muslim Kashmir Valley contact with the outside world, five eminent international human-rights advocates say that the Indian military chokehold may be obscuring continuing abuses against civilians, nearly three weeks after stripping the region of its political autonomy. Information has been slowly emerging. “The …

India

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India at the UN: Thorny Questions for the Ambassador

September 28, 2018

by Soumya Shankar

Now was supposed to be the first thaw in relations between Pakistan and India after talks have been stalled since 2016. But Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan recently tweeted about India’s “arrogant and negative response . . . to my call for resumption of the peace dialogue,” hours after India retracted its position …

India, Security Council

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The Heart of Ethnic Cleansing Has Moved to India

August 15, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

Harsh Mander had barely arrived in the remote northeastern Indian state of Assam when he was drawn into a humanitarian horror story years in the making. It was about to get exponentially worse. “The people of Assam are sitting atop a smoldering volcano, one that threatens to erupt into catastrophic suffering and injustice,” he …

Human Rights, India

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Changing the Minds of Youths to Stop India’s Extreme Bias Against Girls

February 26, 2018

by Ariel Sophia Bardi

HARYANA, India — In 2014, Breakthrough India, an independent human-rights organization, launched a program to tackle gender discrimination throughout 150 schools in Haryana, one of India’s most gender-biased states. A 2011 census showed that Haryana, a primarily agricultural state bordering Delhi in northern India, had the worst child-sex ratio in the country, with only …

Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, India, Poverty

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Girl, Disrupted: How a Boarding School Shifted the Life of One Young Woman

December 13, 2017

by Barbara Crossette

Shilpa Raj is not a Bollywood name, though she has starred in a documentary. She is not a best-selling author — yet. But she has written a frank, soulful book that can contribute to important discussions about the human costs of a disrupted childhood, however well-intentioned, based on her own extraordinary story. At the …

Asia, India, Poverty

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TB in India: Drug-Resistant Strains Are ‘Out of Control,’ New Report Says

October 27, 2017

by Barbara Crossette

Stephen Lewis is an outspoken and often impassioned Canadian diplomat and former United Nations official with a lot of experience in tracking health crises in Africa. Now he has turned his attention to tuberculosis in India, where he made a fact-finding trip in early October. He was shocked and disheartened by what he saw …

Asia, Health and Population, India

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In Lush Manipur, Women Work for Peace as Militarization Marches On

September 5, 2017

by Binalakshmi Nepram

Manipur, a state of exceptional beauty in a little-known corner of northeastern India, was an independent region until 1949 when, in a controversial move, it was merged into the Indian union. Situated in an emerald green valley surrounded by nine blue mist-covered mountain ranges, the state has been seriously affected since 1949 by many …

Asia, Disarmament, India

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A Special School to Help Special Children

March 3, 2017

by Barbara Crossette

Abraham George was a young officer in the Indian army when his postings around the country in the late 1960s exposed him to faces of India that shocked him. His comfortable home in a distinguished Kerala family had not prepared him for the misery he saw. His father was the dean of Kerala University …

Asia, India, Poverty

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Marriage Is Not for Her

January 30, 2017

by Pushpa Achanta

BANGALORE — Ask any woman to describe marriage in a few words, and she is most likely to say: romance, respect, understanding, support, care. The reality of this relationship for a sizeable number of women, unfortunately, is marred with violence, deceit, exploitation and other traumas. Yet a woman in India cannot imagine her life …

India, Women

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Amid Kashmiri Violence, a Rape-Murder Case of Two Women Goes Unsolved

November 29, 2016

by Gulzar Bhat

SHOPIAN, Kashmir — A strange quiet had fallen over the Eidgah, a sacred space and martyrs’ graveyard. The sadness was overwhelming, but there was also an underlying restlessness. A special prayer meeting had been organized by Shakeel Ahmad Ahanger and hundreds from this small town had gathered to remember two of its daughters, one …

Gender-Based Violence, India

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Tribal Women’s Eco-Friendly Leaf Plates Head to Western Tables

September 30, 2016

by Rakhi Ghosh

KANDHAMAL, India — Sampati Kahanra, a woman from the Kandha tribal people of eastern India, has a deep connection with the forest. From as long as she can remember, she has been walking in the dense greenery to find food, firewood and leaves. It started when she was a child going out with her …

India

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At Going Rate, Government Goals for Family Planning Needs to Fall Far Short

August 29, 2016

by Ajitha Menon

DELHI — At the landmark London Summit on family planning in 2012, 69 countries pledged to enable fuller access to family planning services for an additional 120 million women globally by 2020. India committed to spending more than $2 billion toward family planning services for 48 million women by 2020, besides sustaining its existing …

India

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The Trials and Tribulations of Running a Woman-Led Dairy Farm

July 27, 2016

by Taru Bahl

DELHI — Bora Bai lives on the outskirts of Guwahati, a large city in the state of Assam located on a hillock, set against the backdrop of lush hills of the Shillong plateau. What looks like an idyllic setting is actually the opposite: life is tough for Bai, a single woman who runs a …

India

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Failing Public Schools Spur Global Boom in Private Education

May 16, 2016

by Barbara Crossette

While governments bask in data showing that the development goal of universal access to primary education has largely been achieved, attention is turning to what that really means in the classroom. Educators and human-rights advocates question whether acceptable standards are being met in many schools, as evidence mounts of the proliferation of private education …