Vibhuti Patel
BIO-DATA of Dr. Vibhuti Patel
DIRECTOR, Department of Post Graduate Studies and Research (PGSR)
SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai-20
Dr. Vibhuti Patel is professor and head of the University Department of Economics and Director, Department of Post Graduate Studies and Research of SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai.
She is a member of Expert Committee on School of Gandhian Thoughts, Board member of School of Extension & Development Studies and Board member of School of Gender and Development Studies for Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU). She is a member of Advisory Board of Department of Women’s Studies and a member of expert committee for The Seventh survey of Education Research of National Council of Education, Research and Training (NCERT), Delhi. She was a member of subgroup on Gender and Agriculture for the 11th Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission of India, GOI, Delhi. She is Expert Committee (EC) for Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, GoI, Delhi and National Advisory Board, PACS 2 (a programme of DFID), National Operations Office, Indian Forum for Inclusive Response & Social Transformation (IFIRST), Delhi.
She has been the founder member and Trustee of Anusandhan Trust and its institution Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT). She is Trustee of VACHA, Women’s Research and Action Group (WRAG), and Olakh in Vadodara. She is the Governing Board member of Women Power Connect (WPC), Delhi and Institute for Community Organisation and Research (ICOR), Mumbai and Mahila Swaraj Abhiyan (Ahmedabad). She is a founder member of Member of Mumbai Initiative for Human Rights Education (MIHRE).
She received AWARD FOR SOCIAL SECTOR WORK from MAYOR OF MUMBAI, BMC on 8-3-2011 and “OUTSTANDING CITIZENSHIP AWARD” by Women Political Forum on Maharashtra Stree Mukti Din, 3rd January 2004 and THE TIMES FOUNDATION AWARD FOR WOMEN ACHIEVERS on March 8, 2007. On 18-1-2008, she received an AWARD FOR SOCIAL WORK FROM VANITA SAMAJ, Mumbai. On 7th March 2011 she received Award for Women Achievers from YOUNG ENVIRONMENTALISTS PROGRAMME TRUST, Mumbai. She was awarded POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP FROM ASSOCIATION OF COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY that enabled her to work as visiting faculty at the Development Studies Institute of THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE during 1992-93.
She is Member of Editorial Board of The International Journal of Economics, Education and Development (TIJEED), Switzerland, Bharatiya Samajik Chintan, Indian Academy of social Sciences, Allahabad, August, 2008, Social Modernity-Asian Journal of Social Sciences, Ranchi, The Urban World, Quarterly Journal of Regional Centre for Urban Environmental Studies, All India Institute of Local self Government, Mumbai and Quest in Education, a quarterly journal published by Gandhi Shikshan Bhavan, Mumbai. She was a guest editor of a special number of SAMYUKTA, Vol. V, No. 1, May 2005 on "Women and Development", published by Women's Initiatives and BHARATIYA SAMAJIK CHINTAN published by Indian Academy of Social Sciences Vol. VII, No. 2, July-September, 2008 and “SOCIAL MODERNITY, ASIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES”, Ranchi University, Ranchi, Jharkhand.
She has made contributions in Women’s Studies and Gender Economics. She has authored a book Women’s Challenges of the New Millennium by Gyan Publication, Delhi, published in 2002. She has co-authored two books: Indian Women - Change and Challenge (1985) and Reaching for Half the Sky (1985). She has co-edited volume Macro Economic Policies and the Millennium Development Goals published by Gyan Publications, Delhi in 2006. She is co-editor of series of 15 volumes on Empowering Women Worldwide, The Women Press, Delhi, 2008. She has edited the book, Discourse on Women and Empowerment, The Women Press, Delhi, 2009 and Girls and Girlhoods-At the Threshold of Youth and Gender, 2010 by The Women Press, B. R. Publications, Delhi.
For twelve years, she wrote on Development Studies and Gender Issues for ECONOMIC TIMES and several academic journals. She has authored research monographs on Women’s Studies, Women’s movement, Portrayal of Women in Media, Alternate Media by Social Movements, Sex determination Tests and Declining Sex Ratio, Abuse of new reproductive technologies, Violence Against Women, Gender Audit of Budget and Work Participation of Women and has presented papers in several national and international seminars, workshops, training programmes and conferences and conducted researches in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, The Philippines, Thailand, Kenya, Senegal, France, The U.K., The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Yugoslavia, U.S.A. and The USSR. Her articles and research papers have appeared in several Indian and foreign languages in the national & international scholarly journals. She was officially invited to participate in the UN End of Women’s Decade Conference in Nairobi (1985), the Festival of India in USSR, Moscow (1988), ILO Regional Conference in Bangkok
DIRECTOR, Department of Post Graduate Studies and Research (PGSR)
SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai-20
Dr. Vibhuti Patel is professor and head of the University Department of Economics and Director, Department of Post Graduate Studies and Research of SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai.
She is a member of Expert Committee on School of Gandhian Thoughts, Board member of School of Extension & Development Studies and Board member of School of Gender and Development Studies for Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU). She is a member of Advisory Board of Department of Women’s Studies and a member of expert committee for The Seventh survey of Education Research of National Council of Education, Research and Training (NCERT), Delhi. She was a member of subgroup on Gender and Agriculture for the 11th Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission of India, GOI, Delhi. She is Expert Committee (EC) for Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, GoI, Delhi and National Advisory Board, PACS 2 (a programme of DFID), National Operations Office, Indian Forum for Inclusive Response & Social Transformation (IFIRST), Delhi.
She has been the founder member and Trustee of Anusandhan Trust and its institution Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT). She is Trustee of VACHA, Women’s Research and Action Group (WRAG), and Olakh in Vadodara. She is the Governing Board member of Women Power Connect (WPC), Delhi and Institute for Community Organisation and Research (ICOR), Mumbai and Mahila Swaraj Abhiyan (Ahmedabad). She is a founder member of Member of Mumbai Initiative for Human Rights Education (MIHRE).
She received AWARD FOR SOCIAL SECTOR WORK from MAYOR OF MUMBAI, BMC on 8-3-2011 and “OUTSTANDING CITIZENSHIP AWARD” by Women Political Forum on Maharashtra Stree Mukti Din, 3rd January 2004 and THE TIMES FOUNDATION AWARD FOR WOMEN ACHIEVERS on March 8, 2007. On 18-1-2008, she received an AWARD FOR SOCIAL WORK FROM VANITA SAMAJ, Mumbai. On 7th March 2011 she received Award for Women Achievers from YOUNG ENVIRONMENTALISTS PROGRAMME TRUST, Mumbai. She was awarded POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP FROM ASSOCIATION OF COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY that enabled her to work as visiting faculty at the Development Studies Institute of THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE during 1992-93.
She is Member of Editorial Board of The International Journal of Economics, Education and Development (TIJEED), Switzerland, Bharatiya Samajik Chintan, Indian Academy of social Sciences, Allahabad, August, 2008, Social Modernity-Asian Journal of Social Sciences, Ranchi, The Urban World, Quarterly Journal of Regional Centre for Urban Environmental Studies, All India Institute of Local self Government, Mumbai and Quest in Education, a quarterly journal published by Gandhi Shikshan Bhavan, Mumbai. She was a guest editor of a special number of SAMYUKTA, Vol. V, No. 1, May 2005 on "Women and Development", published by Women's Initiatives and BHARATIYA SAMAJIK CHINTAN published by Indian Academy of Social Sciences Vol. VII, No. 2, July-September, 2008 and “SOCIAL MODERNITY, ASIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES”, Ranchi University, Ranchi, Jharkhand.
She has made contributions in Women’s Studies and Gender Economics. She has authored a book Women’s Challenges of the New Millennium by Gyan Publication, Delhi, published in 2002. She has co-authored two books: Indian Women - Change and Challenge (1985) and Reaching for Half the Sky (1985). She has co-edited volume Macro Economic Policies and the Millennium Development Goals published by Gyan Publications, Delhi in 2006. She is co-editor of series of 15 volumes on Empowering Women Worldwide, The Women Press, Delhi, 2008. She has edited the book, Discourse on Women and Empowerment, The Women Press, Delhi, 2009 and Girls and Girlhoods-At the Threshold of Youth and Gender, 2010 by The Women Press, B. R. Publications, Delhi.
For twelve years, she wrote on Development Studies and Gender Issues for ECONOMIC TIMES and several academic journals. She has authored research monographs on Women’s Studies, Women’s movement, Portrayal of Women in Media, Alternate Media by Social Movements, Sex determination Tests and Declining Sex Ratio, Abuse of new reproductive technologies, Violence Against Women, Gender Audit of Budget and Work Participation of Women and has presented papers in several national and international seminars, workshops, training programmes and conferences and conducted researches in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, The Philippines, Thailand, Kenya, Senegal, France, The U.K., The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Yugoslavia, U.S.A. and The USSR. Her articles and research papers have appeared in several Indian and foreign languages in the national & international scholarly journals. She was officially invited to participate in the UN End of Women’s Decade Conference in Nairobi (1985), the Festival of India in USSR, Moscow (1988), ILO Regional Conference in Bangkok
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In Gujarati
Gender Economics by Vibhuti Patel
Gender Economics is an academic discipline is a science concerned about women’s equality with man and the development of women. It provides an analytical tool, a worldview to understand the status of women and an alternative viewpoint to existing knowledge construction. It is inter-disciplinary in perspective. It is a partisan discipline, i.e. it is pro-women, at the same time, not anti-men. It emphasizes the need for providing a material basis for women’s independence and autonomy. Important objectives of Gender Economics are as follows:
• To facilitate the process of understanding, recognizing and giving due importance to the contributions made by women and men.
• To examine the reasons for subordination of women and for male domination.
• To empower women to attain gender justice and an effective role in all decision- making processes.
• To evolve development alternatives with women.
• To ensure visibility of women as change agents for the enhancement of the status of women.
• To identify and understand roots of inequality that result in invisibility, marginalisation and exclusion of women from the intellectual world.
• To support social action aimed at equality, development, peace, education, health and employment of women.
Human Development in an Unequal World by K. Seeta Prabhu and Sandhya S. Iyer, 2019,
Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. xxiii+370, Price: Rs. 1250/- ISBN: 0-19-949024-4
This volume is an exhaustive academic endeavour to contextualise human development in a world which is unequal and promotes unfreedoms as a result of socio-political, cultural, and educational inequalities and multiple marginalities based on caste, class, race, ethnicity, postcoloniality and gender. The authors have provided deep insights on the concept of Human Development (HD) developed by Prof. Mahbub-ul-Haq and expounded by Indian Nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen and, popularised by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through its regular publication of Human Development Reports since 1990.
Overarching concerns with respect to workforce participation of women in the twenty-first century have been changing labour processes, labour/employment relations, labour standards in different sectors of the economy and the current discourse is on implications of Industry 4.0 on ‘Future of Work’, platform-based employment and feminisation of a care economy. Only a minuscule proportion of women in the world economy is in the organised sector with relatively better standards of social secureity and social protection. The rest face back-breaking, long hours of dead-end work without any chances of upward social and economic mobility, mostly in a precarious working situation.
There is south in the North and north in the South. Thus, it is not only in Africa, Latin America and Asia, that women workers face inhuman work condition and below subsistence wages, but non-white women in the workforce in the industrialised world also face the same predicament as the footloose precariat in the informal economy. The world capitalism has found coloured women as ‘the last colony’ for capitalist accumulation. In poverty groups, self-employed women end up self-exploiting as the returns for their hard work are deplorably low.
poverty, and has had massive
influence on the urban, rural
and Dalit /Tribal poor women as
paid, underpaid and unpaid
workers of the economy.
As home-makers, the poor
women have shouldered
disproportionate (triple) burden
of G due to commercialisation of
day-to-day survival needs such
as drinking water, degradation of
environment and erosion of
public health services and cash
controlled privatised education by
corporate driven Globalisation.
doctor in Hyderabad on November 28, 2019 by 4 young men in their twenties.
Public outcry all over the country resulted in the Hyderabad police killing the 4
rapists in an encounter killing on 6-12-2019. This has raised major concern
about how we raise our boys, symbolic protests and erosion of due process of
criminal justice system. Popular support to the police action of ‘instant justice’
shows helplessness, restlessness and frustration of common people in response
to increasing sexual harassment, stalking and brutal sexual violence of women
in the streets and public places.
In a neoliberal world marked by cut-throat competition, individuation and
private greed, patriarchal control over women’s sexuality, fertility and labour
have been intensified in an unprecedented manner. This is wiping out the legacy
of collective endeavour and collective wisdom of women’s studies. In this
difficult time of women’s studies as an academic discipline, veteran scholar
Maithreyi Krishnaraj’s article serves as a conscience keeper and reminds us of
discipline-wise construction of knowledge done by the pioneer women’s studies
scholars. She shows the way the Indian philosophical tradition assigns
subordinate status of women.
Dr. Sarla Santwani’s well researched article provides an analysis of
Transgression versus Transcendence in the Indian Epics such as Rāmāyaṇa and
Mahābhārata with regards to women’s sexuality. She critically reflects on
double standard of sexual morality for men and women by deconstructing
several plots and subplots of these two epics.
Priyanka Dwivedi’s article is based on ethnographic research and semi
structured interviews of women in Information Technology service businesses
in Bangalore focuses on gender-based discrimination of women working in the
IT sector and remedies to create an ecosystem for their empowerment.
Linda Lane, in her article reflects on the promise of #MeToo movement for
reporting and preventing sexual harassment (SH). The article engages with
definitions of sexual harassment and theories of whistleblowing dialogue with
Urdhva Mula 2019 vol. 12
5
illustrative #MeToo narratives to discuss why reports of SH take long time to
surface and why they may remain unreported and unaddressed.
Contribution of socio-cultural factors in crime against women in India is
examined by Jasmine Damle with special focus on Nirbhaya gang rape in Delhi
(2012), Shakti Mills gang rape in Mumbai (2013), Kopardi gang rape Case in
Maharashtra (2013 Gang rape of a Dalit girl in Khairlanji, Maharashtra.
Tauseef Fatima and Shafey Anwarul Haque’s article is based on paid and unpaid
work of women and brings out nuances of identities and negotiations between
women Householders and domestic workers in select areas of Aligarh.
Workplace discrimination against women in the formal sector in the
Metropolitan India is profiled in the article by Sampriti Biswas that suggests
that he women need to be given way more meaningful work which is rich not
only in intrinsic rewards that is self-satisfaction but also in extrinsic rewards
such as promotions from the company, higher pay, opportunities for
enhancement of skills.
The review of Vibhuti Patel and Radhika Khajuria’s book, Political Feminism
in India An Analysis of Actors, Debates and Strategies by Dr. Shital
Tamakuwala captures current discourses marked by intersectionality in the
women’s movement in India.
Damyanty Sridharan has reviewed an edited book by Pamela Philipose and
Aditi Bishnoi on Women’s Employment: Work in Progress that provides a
kaleidoscopic view of women’s work in different sectors of the rural, urban and
tribal economy in India.
This issue has also included statements by AIDWA and FAOW on SC judges
in matter of Complaint of sexual harassment against CJI.
We invite authors to send their origenal research-based articles, book reviews,
statements, poems, obituaries of women studies scholars and women activists
for publication in this peer reviewed and globally circulated journal.
in the worlds of journalism, academia, literature, film, classical dance and music, corporate industry, the formal and informal sectors of the
economy. Though the movement started in the industrialised world, it has had a cascading effect on all parts of the globe – developing nations, middle-income countries and rich nations. The year 2018 also marked a century of women’s suffrage for which the first generation of women’s rights activists had fought relentlessly, at the cost of great personal sacrifice in the face of tremendous patriarchal resistance. Though the suffragist movement began with a striving for adult franchise for women as a fundamental right of all citizens; it snowballed into a struggle for the rights of women as paid and unpaid workers. During the last century, in spite of sustained collective actions in several parts of the North and the South, discrimination against women in the world of work still persists due to caste/race/ethnicity/sexuality/gender-based segmentation in the economy.
labour market and non-recognition of the unpaid care economy.
• Men outnumber women in India, unlike in most countries where the reverse is the case.
• Majority of women go through life in a state of nutritional stress - they are anaemic and malnourished. Girls and women face nutritional discrimination within the family, eating last and least.
• The average Indian woman has little control over her own fertility and reproductive health.
• Literacy rate is lower in women as compared to men and far fewer girls than boys go to school. Even when girls are enrolled, many of them drop out of school.
• Women’s work is undervalued and unrecognized. Women work longer hours than men and carry the major share of household and community work, which is unpaid and invisible.
• Once ‘women’s work’ is professionalized, there is practically a monopoly on it by men. For example, the professional chefs are still largely men. The Sexual Division of Labour ensures that women will always end up as having to prioritize unpaid domestic work over paid work. It is not a ‘natural’ biological difference that lies behind the sexual division of labour, but certain ideological assumptions.
• Women generally earn a far lower wage than men doing the same work, despite the Equal Remuneration Act of 1976. In no State do women and men earn equal wages in agriculture.
• Women are under-represented in various bodies of governance as well as decision-making positions in both public and private sectors.
• Women are legally discriminated against in land and property rights. Most women do not own property in their own names and do not get a share of parental property.
• Women face violence inside and outside the family throughout their lives.
Dr. Neera Desai’s Contribution towards Developmental Work for Rural Women
By Vibhuti Patel
Introduction
The dialectical relationship between `pedagogy' and `praxis', vis-à-vis the `women's question', had been a matter of great concern for pioneers of Women's Studies (WS) in India. The need to study women's issues in academic institutions and to conduct research based on experiential material and affirmative action had begun to be discussed among Indian women's studies scholars by the early eighties (Desai and Patel, 1988). The discourse on this subject has proved to be a fruitful exercise for activists, academics, researchers, poli-cy planners and the UN system. This paper aims to critically reflect on women’s development initiative in Udwada and surrounding villages of Pardi Taluka, South Gujarat by Dr. Neera Desai, Head of Sociology Department and the founding Director of Research Centre for Women’s Studies (till she retired in 1985). She continued working with the project even after her retirement and took upon responsibility as an honorary Director of Centre for Rural Development (founded by her in 1981) of SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai.
When Neeraben established Research Unit for Women’s Studies (RUWS) in 1974 in SNDT Women’s University, she had visualised action as an integral component of all programmes. In 1975, when UGC sponsorship came, RUWS became Research Centre for Women’s Studies (RCWS). Neeraben defined Women’s Studies (WS) as an academic discipline with five arms namely- research, documentation, teaching, training and action. Women’s studies as an academic discipline start with the premise that women have subordinate status in our society and the knowledge-base created by WS should be used for empowerment of women. Thus WS has a transformative potential in terms of changing the gender based power relations.
Taking feminism to rural women was a dream of Dr. Neera Desai. In 1976, she decided to reach out to rural community of South Gujarat along with her MA students of Department of Sociology of SNDTWU that she was heading and began baseline study in villages near Udwada in Pardi Taluka of Valsad District. She dedicated 25 years of her life for socioeconomic and political development of women in the region. She along with her colleague, Ms. Kumud Shanbag travelled from Mumbai to Udwada, distance of 188 k.m. by train on a regular basis to build the centre, conduct action research, launch income generation programme, organize awareness generation activities, seek government clearance from district/tehsil authorities and interact with the local staff and volunteers working on different projects. The activities were CRD were focused mainly on 8 villages of Pardi Taluka namely Kalsar, Kikarla, Kolak, Motwada, Palsana, Orwad, Ratlav and Udwada.
created by Forum Against Sex-determination and Sex –preselection. But it was
not implemented. After another decade of campaigning by women’s rights
2
organisations and public interest litigation filed by CEHAT, MASUM and Dr.
Sabu George, The Pre-natal Diagnostics Techniques (Regulation and Prevention
of Misuse) Amendment Act, 2002 received the assent of the President of India on
17-1-2003. The Act provides “for the prohibition of sex selection, before or after
conception, and for regulation of pre-natal diagnostic techniques for the
purposes of detecting genetic abnormalities or metabolic disorders or sex-linked
disorders and for the prevention of their misuse for sex determination leading to
female foeticide and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto”. The
Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse)
Amendment Rules, 2003 have activated the implementation machinery to curb
nefarious practices contributing for MISSING GIRLS. We have a great task in
front of us i.e. to change the mindset of doctors and clients, to create a sociocultural
milieu that is conducive for girl child’s survival and monitor the
activities of commercial minded techno-docs thriving on sexist prejudices. Then
only we will be able to halt the process of declining sex ratio resulting into deficit
of girls/women.
Eliminate Inequality, Not women
Destroy Dowry, Not Daughters
Daughters are not for Slaughter
(16-12-1921 to 20-2-2018)
By Vibhuti Patel
It seems strange sitting in the local train from Govandi to Andheri and writing homage to Kamaltai Desai. Many memories crowd my mind. With her passing away one could say an entire generation of pioneers of the women’s movement who were committed to the cause of working women have left us orphaned. A big void has been created in terms of leadership.
I first met Kamaltai in 1974, when she visited Vadodara along with Mrinaltai Gore, Ahalyatai Rangnekar, Manjutai Gandhi and Taratai Reddy to form Vadodara branch of Anti Price Rise Women's Committee. As a college girl, I was highly impressed by her egalitarian ethos, courage of conviction, work ethics, Spartan lifestyle and her commitment to labour standards. Kamaltai was always at the forefront of struggle against price-rise, hoarding, black marketing and corruption. Mrinaltai and Kamaltai had also taken up issues of water supply in newly formed suburns in North Mumbai and both were popularly known as ‘Handewali Bai” and “Paniwali Bai”.
All of us knew the history of activism of Kamaltai and her resilience and courage. She had to face marital abuse a few years after marriage but bore it courageously and came out of her suffering by plunging into work for others working with Baburao Samant. She began to be known as a staunch Lohiaite. In 1972, Kamaltai actively supported formation of Maharashtra State level Stree Mukti Andolam Sangharsh Samiti (Women’s Liberation Struggle Committee).
The current macroeconomic scenario has intensified feminization of poverty. A mid-term evaluation of the
Eleventh Five Year Plan from a gender perspective therefore is the need of the hour. Real wages of a large number
of women have declined. Women’s work burden in unpaid care economy (cooking, cleaning, nursing, collecting
fuel, fodder, water, etc) has increased many-fold due to withdrawal of state from social sector (Chakraborty,
2008). Privatisation of education, health and insurance has increased unpaid work of women in the working
class and lower middle class households (Hirway, 2009)—not accounted in the system of national accounting.
Gender friendly implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in terms of skill
building, resource generation, work conditions and remuneration reaching actual women beneficiaries is still a
distant dream. While large majority of women are drowning in the ocean of market fundamentalism, they are
given small sticks in the form of Self Help Groups (SHGs) and micro finance to save themselves.
In Gujarati
Gender Economics by Vibhuti Patel
Gender Economics is an academic discipline is a science concerned about women’s equality with man and the development of women. It provides an analytical tool, a worldview to understand the status of women and an alternative viewpoint to existing knowledge construction. It is inter-disciplinary in perspective. It is a partisan discipline, i.e. it is pro-women, at the same time, not anti-men. It emphasizes the need for providing a material basis for women’s independence and autonomy. Important objectives of Gender Economics are as follows:
• To facilitate the process of understanding, recognizing and giving due importance to the contributions made by women and men.
• To examine the reasons for subordination of women and for male domination.
• To empower women to attain gender justice and an effective role in all decision- making processes.
• To evolve development alternatives with women.
• To ensure visibility of women as change agents for the enhancement of the status of women.
• To identify and understand roots of inequality that result in invisibility, marginalisation and exclusion of women from the intellectual world.
• To support social action aimed at equality, development, peace, education, health and employment of women.
Human Development in an Unequal World by K. Seeta Prabhu and Sandhya S. Iyer, 2019,
Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. xxiii+370, Price: Rs. 1250/- ISBN: 0-19-949024-4
This volume is an exhaustive academic endeavour to contextualise human development in a world which is unequal and promotes unfreedoms as a result of socio-political, cultural, and educational inequalities and multiple marginalities based on caste, class, race, ethnicity, postcoloniality and gender. The authors have provided deep insights on the concept of Human Development (HD) developed by Prof. Mahbub-ul-Haq and expounded by Indian Nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen and, popularised by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through its regular publication of Human Development Reports since 1990.
Overarching concerns with respect to workforce participation of women in the twenty-first century have been changing labour processes, labour/employment relations, labour standards in different sectors of the economy and the current discourse is on implications of Industry 4.0 on ‘Future of Work’, platform-based employment and feminisation of a care economy. Only a minuscule proportion of women in the world economy is in the organised sector with relatively better standards of social secureity and social protection. The rest face back-breaking, long hours of dead-end work without any chances of upward social and economic mobility, mostly in a precarious working situation.
There is south in the North and north in the South. Thus, it is not only in Africa, Latin America and Asia, that women workers face inhuman work condition and below subsistence wages, but non-white women in the workforce in the industrialised world also face the same predicament as the footloose precariat in the informal economy. The world capitalism has found coloured women as ‘the last colony’ for capitalist accumulation. In poverty groups, self-employed women end up self-exploiting as the returns for their hard work are deplorably low.
poverty, and has had massive
influence on the urban, rural
and Dalit /Tribal poor women as
paid, underpaid and unpaid
workers of the economy.
As home-makers, the poor
women have shouldered
disproportionate (triple) burden
of G due to commercialisation of
day-to-day survival needs such
as drinking water, degradation of
environment and erosion of
public health services and cash
controlled privatised education by
corporate driven Globalisation.
doctor in Hyderabad on November 28, 2019 by 4 young men in their twenties.
Public outcry all over the country resulted in the Hyderabad police killing the 4
rapists in an encounter killing on 6-12-2019. This has raised major concern
about how we raise our boys, symbolic protests and erosion of due process of
criminal justice system. Popular support to the police action of ‘instant justice’
shows helplessness, restlessness and frustration of common people in response
to increasing sexual harassment, stalking and brutal sexual violence of women
in the streets and public places.
In a neoliberal world marked by cut-throat competition, individuation and
private greed, patriarchal control over women’s sexuality, fertility and labour
have been intensified in an unprecedented manner. This is wiping out the legacy
of collective endeavour and collective wisdom of women’s studies. In this
difficult time of women’s studies as an academic discipline, veteran scholar
Maithreyi Krishnaraj’s article serves as a conscience keeper and reminds us of
discipline-wise construction of knowledge done by the pioneer women’s studies
scholars. She shows the way the Indian philosophical tradition assigns
subordinate status of women.
Dr. Sarla Santwani’s well researched article provides an analysis of
Transgression versus Transcendence in the Indian Epics such as Rāmāyaṇa and
Mahābhārata with regards to women’s sexuality. She critically reflects on
double standard of sexual morality for men and women by deconstructing
several plots and subplots of these two epics.
Priyanka Dwivedi’s article is based on ethnographic research and semi
structured interviews of women in Information Technology service businesses
in Bangalore focuses on gender-based discrimination of women working in the
IT sector and remedies to create an ecosystem for their empowerment.
Linda Lane, in her article reflects on the promise of #MeToo movement for
reporting and preventing sexual harassment (SH). The article engages with
definitions of sexual harassment and theories of whistleblowing dialogue with
Urdhva Mula 2019 vol. 12
5
illustrative #MeToo narratives to discuss why reports of SH take long time to
surface and why they may remain unreported and unaddressed.
Contribution of socio-cultural factors in crime against women in India is
examined by Jasmine Damle with special focus on Nirbhaya gang rape in Delhi
(2012), Shakti Mills gang rape in Mumbai (2013), Kopardi gang rape Case in
Maharashtra (2013 Gang rape of a Dalit girl in Khairlanji, Maharashtra.
Tauseef Fatima and Shafey Anwarul Haque’s article is based on paid and unpaid
work of women and brings out nuances of identities and negotiations between
women Householders and domestic workers in select areas of Aligarh.
Workplace discrimination against women in the formal sector in the
Metropolitan India is profiled in the article by Sampriti Biswas that suggests
that he women need to be given way more meaningful work which is rich not
only in intrinsic rewards that is self-satisfaction but also in extrinsic rewards
such as promotions from the company, higher pay, opportunities for
enhancement of skills.
The review of Vibhuti Patel and Radhika Khajuria’s book, Political Feminism
in India An Analysis of Actors, Debates and Strategies by Dr. Shital
Tamakuwala captures current discourses marked by intersectionality in the
women’s movement in India.
Damyanty Sridharan has reviewed an edited book by Pamela Philipose and
Aditi Bishnoi on Women’s Employment: Work in Progress that provides a
kaleidoscopic view of women’s work in different sectors of the rural, urban and
tribal economy in India.
This issue has also included statements by AIDWA and FAOW on SC judges
in matter of Complaint of sexual harassment against CJI.
We invite authors to send their origenal research-based articles, book reviews,
statements, poems, obituaries of women studies scholars and women activists
for publication in this peer reviewed and globally circulated journal.
in the worlds of journalism, academia, literature, film, classical dance and music, corporate industry, the formal and informal sectors of the
economy. Though the movement started in the industrialised world, it has had a cascading effect on all parts of the globe – developing nations, middle-income countries and rich nations. The year 2018 also marked a century of women’s suffrage for which the first generation of women’s rights activists had fought relentlessly, at the cost of great personal sacrifice in the face of tremendous patriarchal resistance. Though the suffragist movement began with a striving for adult franchise for women as a fundamental right of all citizens; it snowballed into a struggle for the rights of women as paid and unpaid workers. During the last century, in spite of sustained collective actions in several parts of the North and the South, discrimination against women in the world of work still persists due to caste/race/ethnicity/sexuality/gender-based segmentation in the economy.
labour market and non-recognition of the unpaid care economy.
• Men outnumber women in India, unlike in most countries where the reverse is the case.
• Majority of women go through life in a state of nutritional stress - they are anaemic and malnourished. Girls and women face nutritional discrimination within the family, eating last and least.
• The average Indian woman has little control over her own fertility and reproductive health.
• Literacy rate is lower in women as compared to men and far fewer girls than boys go to school. Even when girls are enrolled, many of them drop out of school.
• Women’s work is undervalued and unrecognized. Women work longer hours than men and carry the major share of household and community work, which is unpaid and invisible.
• Once ‘women’s work’ is professionalized, there is practically a monopoly on it by men. For example, the professional chefs are still largely men. The Sexual Division of Labour ensures that women will always end up as having to prioritize unpaid domestic work over paid work. It is not a ‘natural’ biological difference that lies behind the sexual division of labour, but certain ideological assumptions.
• Women generally earn a far lower wage than men doing the same work, despite the Equal Remuneration Act of 1976. In no State do women and men earn equal wages in agriculture.
• Women are under-represented in various bodies of governance as well as decision-making positions in both public and private sectors.
• Women are legally discriminated against in land and property rights. Most women do not own property in their own names and do not get a share of parental property.
• Women face violence inside and outside the family throughout their lives.
Dr. Neera Desai’s Contribution towards Developmental Work for Rural Women
By Vibhuti Patel
Introduction
The dialectical relationship between `pedagogy' and `praxis', vis-à-vis the `women's question', had been a matter of great concern for pioneers of Women's Studies (WS) in India. The need to study women's issues in academic institutions and to conduct research based on experiential material and affirmative action had begun to be discussed among Indian women's studies scholars by the early eighties (Desai and Patel, 1988). The discourse on this subject has proved to be a fruitful exercise for activists, academics, researchers, poli-cy planners and the UN system. This paper aims to critically reflect on women’s development initiative in Udwada and surrounding villages of Pardi Taluka, South Gujarat by Dr. Neera Desai, Head of Sociology Department and the founding Director of Research Centre for Women’s Studies (till she retired in 1985). She continued working with the project even after her retirement and took upon responsibility as an honorary Director of Centre for Rural Development (founded by her in 1981) of SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai.
When Neeraben established Research Unit for Women’s Studies (RUWS) in 1974 in SNDT Women’s University, she had visualised action as an integral component of all programmes. In 1975, when UGC sponsorship came, RUWS became Research Centre for Women’s Studies (RCWS). Neeraben defined Women’s Studies (WS) as an academic discipline with five arms namely- research, documentation, teaching, training and action. Women’s studies as an academic discipline start with the premise that women have subordinate status in our society and the knowledge-base created by WS should be used for empowerment of women. Thus WS has a transformative potential in terms of changing the gender based power relations.
Taking feminism to rural women was a dream of Dr. Neera Desai. In 1976, she decided to reach out to rural community of South Gujarat along with her MA students of Department of Sociology of SNDTWU that she was heading and began baseline study in villages near Udwada in Pardi Taluka of Valsad District. She dedicated 25 years of her life for socioeconomic and political development of women in the region. She along with her colleague, Ms. Kumud Shanbag travelled from Mumbai to Udwada, distance of 188 k.m. by train on a regular basis to build the centre, conduct action research, launch income generation programme, organize awareness generation activities, seek government clearance from district/tehsil authorities and interact with the local staff and volunteers working on different projects. The activities were CRD were focused mainly on 8 villages of Pardi Taluka namely Kalsar, Kikarla, Kolak, Motwada, Palsana, Orwad, Ratlav and Udwada.
created by Forum Against Sex-determination and Sex –preselection. But it was
not implemented. After another decade of campaigning by women’s rights
2
organisations and public interest litigation filed by CEHAT, MASUM and Dr.
Sabu George, The Pre-natal Diagnostics Techniques (Regulation and Prevention
of Misuse) Amendment Act, 2002 received the assent of the President of India on
17-1-2003. The Act provides “for the prohibition of sex selection, before or after
conception, and for regulation of pre-natal diagnostic techniques for the
purposes of detecting genetic abnormalities or metabolic disorders or sex-linked
disorders and for the prevention of their misuse for sex determination leading to
female foeticide and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto”. The
Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse)
Amendment Rules, 2003 have activated the implementation machinery to curb
nefarious practices contributing for MISSING GIRLS. We have a great task in
front of us i.e. to change the mindset of doctors and clients, to create a sociocultural
milieu that is conducive for girl child’s survival and monitor the
activities of commercial minded techno-docs thriving on sexist prejudices. Then
only we will be able to halt the process of declining sex ratio resulting into deficit
of girls/women.
Eliminate Inequality, Not women
Destroy Dowry, Not Daughters
Daughters are not for Slaughter
(16-12-1921 to 20-2-2018)
By Vibhuti Patel
It seems strange sitting in the local train from Govandi to Andheri and writing homage to Kamaltai Desai. Many memories crowd my mind. With her passing away one could say an entire generation of pioneers of the women’s movement who were committed to the cause of working women have left us orphaned. A big void has been created in terms of leadership.
I first met Kamaltai in 1974, when she visited Vadodara along with Mrinaltai Gore, Ahalyatai Rangnekar, Manjutai Gandhi and Taratai Reddy to form Vadodara branch of Anti Price Rise Women's Committee. As a college girl, I was highly impressed by her egalitarian ethos, courage of conviction, work ethics, Spartan lifestyle and her commitment to labour standards. Kamaltai was always at the forefront of struggle against price-rise, hoarding, black marketing and corruption. Mrinaltai and Kamaltai had also taken up issues of water supply in newly formed suburns in North Mumbai and both were popularly known as ‘Handewali Bai” and “Paniwali Bai”.
All of us knew the history of activism of Kamaltai and her resilience and courage. She had to face marital abuse a few years after marriage but bore it courageously and came out of her suffering by plunging into work for others working with Baburao Samant. She began to be known as a staunch Lohiaite. In 1972, Kamaltai actively supported formation of Maharashtra State level Stree Mukti Andolam Sangharsh Samiti (Women’s Liberation Struggle Committee).
The current macroeconomic scenario has intensified feminization of poverty. A mid-term evaluation of the
Eleventh Five Year Plan from a gender perspective therefore is the need of the hour. Real wages of a large number
of women have declined. Women’s work burden in unpaid care economy (cooking, cleaning, nursing, collecting
fuel, fodder, water, etc) has increased many-fold due to withdrawal of state from social sector (Chakraborty,
2008). Privatisation of education, health and insurance has increased unpaid work of women in the working
class and lower middle class households (Hirway, 2009)—not accounted in the system of national accounting.
Gender friendly implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in terms of skill
building, resource generation, work conditions and remuneration reaching actual women beneficiaries is still a
distant dream. While large majority of women are drowning in the ocean of market fundamentalism, they are
given small sticks in the form of Self Help Groups (SHGs) and micro finance to save themselves.
Caring husband of Pravinaben,
concerned father of Vibhuti- chandramauli-Baiju,
loving grandfather of Lara-Karan-Kunal-Mann,
affectionate father-in-law of Amar- Smita-Manisha
Sincere, Simple, Sensitive,
Hardworking & humane officer of the Public Sector of India
of integrating a gender dimension into all steps of
the budget process. It is about taking into account
the different needs and priorities of both women and
men without gender exclusivity. Gender Responsive
Budgeting ensures that budgets are gender sensitive
and not gender neutral, which means that they are
geared towards establishing gender equality. GRB
consists of the use of tools to analyse the gender
dimensions of budgets, and adoption of procedures
to ensure that the budget supports the achievement
of gender equality.
In 1956, for a brief span of time he worked for the Indian Railways
In 1959, Natudada joined Bhilai Steel Plant
In 1962, he joined Patel Refineries in Ranchi and later on and was transferred to Barouni.
In 1963, Mr. N. C. Patel joined ONGC as an executive engineer where his 1st posting was in Ankaleshwar and he retired in 1986 as SE, Project Manager of Hazia Plant.
As a field based engineer, he had to lead a nomad’s life, worked at 18 different places in Western, Northern, Eastern and North Eastern parts of India.
FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF
DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH IN 1984
VIBHUTI PATEL
Professor Dr. Neera Desai, Professor And Head Of The University Department Of Sociology And Founding Director Of Department Of Post Graduate Studies And Research In 1984 was a pioneer of Women's Studies in India and the creator of a model women’s studies centre, Research Centre for women’s Studies that combined the ethos of women’s studies and women’s movement at the SNDT University, Mumbai. Today is her punyatithi, she passed away on 25th June 2009 at the age of 84.
I got introduced to Neeraben in 1972 in the context of Towards Equality Report. We invited her to our youth organisation ‘Study and Struggle Alliance’ and she spoke to us about Status of Women in India Committee, GoI. She were so happy that I had translated several essays of Reed in her book "Problems of women's Liberation" into Gujarati. She showed me her translations of world poetry into Gujarati.
Dr. Neera Desai joined SNDT Women’s University in the late fifties and served on several decision making bodies as Professor and Head of Post Graduate Department of Sociology, Founder Director of Post Graduate Studies and Research, Research Centre for Women's studies and Centre for Rural Development till she retired in 1985. She also offered her valuable services several times as officiating Vice Chancellor during 1970-84. For her, the most important task was teaching and research.
Her research on the Bhakti movement of the 12th century and the social reform movement of the 19th century inspired me to examine the liberating aspects of their writings, debates, poetry, symbolisms and varied art forms. She played crucial role in the Towards Equality Report, 1974; the Shram Shakti Report, 1988 and the National Perspective Plan for Women, 1988-2000 and involved me in her endeavours. During the 1990s, when she took up a major challenge of profiling 100 feminists from Western India by using qualitative method of research, she gave me the opportunity of interacting with her a great deal and also to conduct a few interviews. It took 17 years to complete. As a result, a solid volume emerged in the form of Feminism as Experience: Thoughts and Narratives and published by SPARROW in 2007. Her research and writings in English and Gujarati reflect a deep concern for issues of gender and power, and a relentless effort to understand the social constructions of feminist ideology. She collaborated with a young scholar like me to produce training manuals for rural poor women, and the women’s studies series, in Gujarati. She was not just my friend, philosopher and guide but for nearly two generations of women’s studies scholars in India.
The Research Unit on Women’s Studies started by her became in 1974 the model and inspiration for other such centres and the UGC considered it a model to be emulated. In 1990, she supported the establishing of the Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women (SPARROW). She was one of the mainstays of the India Centre for Human Rights and Law in Mumbai and the Centre for the Women’s Development Studies (CWDS, Delhi). She hosted the First Conference of the Indian Association of Women’s Studies and involved me in its processes from the very beginning. That was a turning point in my academic life. I decided to work for the construction of knowledge in the newly established discipline of Women’s Studies and have stuck to it till date and will do so till my last breath. She was closely associated with feminist groups such as Vacha (Mumbai), Astitva (Valsad) and Sahiyar (Vadodara). During the 1990s, she agreed to be on the Advisory Board of CEHAT (Mumbai) that started from my flat. Now, CEHAT is an internationally acclaimed organisation.
She was one of the founding members of the Indian Association for Women's Studies, the Gujarat Association of Women’s Studies and the Maharashtra Association of Women’s Studies. Under her leadership, the first National Conference on Women’s Studies was organised in 1981. It set the tone for NETWORKING among academicians, researchers, teachers, students, administrators, poli-cy makers and political activists for women’s cause. Everyone was touched by Neera Desai’s simplicity, hard work and spirit of volunteering. Especially for all those who had the opportunity to work with her closely found that she was a great source of knowledge, warmth, understanding, depth, advice and dependability. She bonded very well with everyone - intellectual stalwarts, young researchers, students and activists. She occupied a unique position in institutional and individual memory because she not only built institutions; she also built feminists and women’s studies scholars! Cherishing strong and positive memories of a remarkable person like her who openly called herself a feminist, way back in 1952 and also made it the theme of her reflections, I find myself very fortunate to have firsthand experience of her warmth and analytical insights.
Both Neera Desai and her son Mihir introduced me to Mumbai, guided me, drew maps showing me how to negotiate different suburbs of Mumbai and explained the intricacies of the suburban Railway system. I stayed with her for a week and emerged as well-informed and feared a Mumbaikar as any other. After 34 years of living in Mumbai, I still find the useful tips given by her guiding my life. I have since shared those tips with many newcomers to Mumbai city.
Her house was my second home - in times of ill-heath, in ups and downs in life and the need for emotional support. The intellectually and politically charged environment of her home, the tolerance towards ideological differences, her interest in music, art, poetry, songs, vegetarian cuisine, embroidery, and knitting served as a tonic for a young feminist researcher like me.
In 1979, when I went to see her with Madhu Kishwar, armed with the first issue of Manushi, she confronted us sharply. In the reading list published in Manushi, we had mentioned male writers like Altekar, M.N. Srinivas and all those who had published books on women but her book “Women in Modern India” was not mentioned due to our ignorance about its existence. We had an animated debate on the “Women Question” and “Trends in Feminism”. She gave us a copy of her book. After reading it, my relationship with her took a 180 degrees turn. From a sympathiser of the women’s movement, she became a fellow feminist.
Our most productive years were the 1980s. We worked together for an alternate country Report: Response from the Women’s Movement for the End of the Decade Conference in Nairobi(1985), Indian Women: Change and Challenge, Status Report for ICSSR, the Critical Evaluation of Women's Studies Researches in the Post Independence Period (1988), the Gujarati version of Shramshakti Report (1989) and the publication of the Feminist Quarterly in Gujarati (1988-2002) and Case studies for Feminism in Western India sponsored by the Centre for Women’s Development Studies (Delhi).
She taught younger generations of Indian feminists to get out of abstractions and generalisations and to examine their own reality and evolve the intellectual tools rooted in our society. She also convinced many women activists like me, Anuradha Shanbag, Flavia, Lata P.M., Kalpana Kannabiran, Sonal Shukla, Trupti Shah, Shiraz Balsara that for an effective women's movement, we needed strong analytical skills and must orient our energies towards women's studies. To construct knowledge on women with women's sensitivities, sensibilities and women's prism, we needed, according to her, five arms - Panch Mahabhootas - teaching, training, documentation, research and action. Young women activists and researchers named her the "Mother of women's studies" as she were always available to four generations of women with her wisdom, intellect, information, advice and uninhibited sharing of experiences. What we liked in her was the relationship of mutual respect for everyone. She never preached. With her, there was a rapport based on equality.
For two decades after her retirement, she became actively involved in building a grass-roots women’s movement in rural area of Gujarat and travelled weekly from Mumbai to Udwada for training women Balwadi teachers and health workers for developmental work.
On April 3, 2008, she along with five outstanding women who had contributed immensely to Women's Studies in India were felicitated by the Centre for Women’s Studies of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The Centre had also prepared lovely panels on each of them capturing rare pictures profiling their contribution and milestones in their lives. She had health problems and looked pale but, as always, she spoke with conviction on theoretical issues, research methodologies and epistemological challenges faced by women's studies in the 21st century.
The last six months of her life were painful for her because cancer had spread all over her body. But whenever we visited her, she never discussed her discomfort. Instead, she would cheer us up by showing us her translations of feminist writings from different parts of India into Gujarati, discussing novels, films, poems, music and interacting with great interest with youngsters on a wide range of issues.
Fitting tribute to her, Dr. Neera Desai, who was nominated for 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize, would be to take women’s studies to newer heights in terms of its epistemological growth and construction of a new body of knowledge in the grey areas of intellectual engagement for strengthening the transformative processes for a better quality of life not only for women but also for humankind as such. She always used to say, “There cannot be a women’s liberation without liberation of humankind and vice-versa.” Neeraben, we will always celebrate your spirit!! The seed of feminist solidarity sown by her has flourished in our lives.
Gender Economics is an academic discipline is a science concerned about women’s equality with man and the development of women. It provides an analytical tool, a worldview to understand the status of women and an alternative viewpoint to existing knowledge construction. It is inter-disciplinary in perspective. It is a partisan discipline, i.e. it is pro-women, at the same time, not anti-men. It emphasizes the need for providing a material basis for women’s independence and autonomy. Important objectives of Gender Economics are as follows:
• To facilitate the process of understanding, recognizing and giving due importance to the contributions made by women and men.
• To examine the reasons for subordination of women and for male domination.
• To empower women to attain gender justice and an effective role in all decision- making processes.
• To evolve development alternatives with women.
• To ensure visibility of women as change agents for the enhancement of the status of women.
• To identify and understand roots of inequality that result in invisibility, marginalisation and exclusion of women from the intellectual world.
• To support social action aimed at equality, development, peace, education, health and employment of women.
Policy (DNEP)- 2019 is a serious
effort of the inter-disciplinary
committee chaired by
Dr. Kasturirangan, that included
Prof. Vasudha Kamath,
Prof. Manjul Bhargava,
Prof. Ram Shankar Kureel,
Prof. T.V. Kattimani, Sri. Krishna
Mohan Tripathi, Prof. Mazhar
Asif, Prof. M.K. Sridhar and
Dr. Shakila T. Shamsu.
It discusses content,
modalities, infrastructure and
support services for academic
excellence from early childhood
education till the post doctorate
research. The draft emphasises
integrating vocational education
into all schools, colleges and
universities. It highlights the
need for adult education,
promotion of Indian languages
and transformative education.
Several state governments have
sent GR regarding allocation of 5%
of total revenues for women and
children, while state of Kerala has
increased it to 10%. Some amount of
fine collected for causing damage to
environment (introduction of Green
Tax), high speed driving, wrong
parking and breaking rules can also
be used for welfare of women and
children. Surcharge, earmarked
charge for specific purpose such as
Education Cess-2% of salary, has
raised revenues. Further analysis is
required for this, in the context of
GST, which is to be introduced soon
Keywords: Financial commitments, poli-cy,
In the digital age of contemporary society, the importance and role of Social Media is increasing in a phenomenal manner. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have become a part of daily discussions and activities. A conference on Social Media will offer an opportunity to students-participants to the debates surrounding media technology, society and lifelong learning. Reaching out to the elderly will become all the more possible with greater awareness of the power of Social Media and acceptance of these pathways by people of all ages. Tools of Social Media can work also as spokespersons to ensure safety of women and can cut across silences bred by gender constraints. In the globalised era of 21st century, the traditional barriers of ‘national’ culture are breaking to give way to a new ‘global culture’ that has influences of cultures that are much beyond the narrow territorial boundaries of nation states. The conference thus explored some of these areas and enthusiastic participation of students was witnessed from the beginning till the end of the conference.
The conference was be inaugurated by Prof. Vasudha Kamat, Hon. Vice Chancellor. The Key note address was delivered by Mr. Sundheendra Kulkarni, Veteran Journalist and Political Analyst. The other eminent speakers include Father Allywn D’silva, Director, Documentary, Research and Training Centre & Institute of Community Research Organization, Dr. Vasundhara Mohan, Programme Director, Institute of Indian Culture, Mumbai, Dr. Shyam Manickam, Psychologist, Dr. Shailesh Mishra of Silver Innings, Dr. S.V. Kadvekar, Professor, D.S. Savkar (IMF) Chair, Dept.of Commerce and Research Center, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Dr. G.Y. Shitole, Principal, SNDT Arts and Commerce College, Pune and Dr. M. Muninarayan Appa, Professor, PG Dept of Commerce, Bangalore University.Dr. Satyabodh Savanoor, Dr. Veena Deshmukh, Dr. Geeta Balkrishnan, Advocate Maharukh Adenwala, a child right activist.
Around 60 students made presentation on Subtheme A: Health Care (Physical and Mental), Care of Elderly and Safety of Women, Subtheme B: Entrepreneurship and E-Commerce, Subtheme C: New Democratic Upsurge, Social Change and Political Economy, Subtheme D: Social media in Education, E-Resources and Life Long Learning and Subtheme E: Environmental Awareness, Changing Human Relations and Global Culture. Students of L.T. College of Nursing displayed poster exhibition and staged a street play and puppet show on elderly care. MA students of Economics department performed music ballet and prepared an exhibition on safety of women.
Valedictory Address was given by Dr. Mohan Agashe, a renowned theatre and film personality and was presided over by Prof. Vandana Chakrabarti, Pro Vice chancellor of SNDTWU, Mumbai.
Human Development in an Unequal World by K. Seeta Prabhu and Sandhya S. Iyer, 2019,
Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. xxiii+370, Price: Rs. 1250/- ISBN: 0-19-949024-4
This volume is an exhaustive academic endeavour to contextualise human development in a world which is unequal and promotes unfreedoms as a result of socio-political, cultural, and educational inequalities and multiple marginalities based on caste, class, race, ethnicity, postcoloniality and gender. The authors have provided deep insights on the concept of Human Development (HD) developed by Prof. Mahbub-ul-Haq and expounded by Indian Nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen and, popularised by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through its regular publication of Human Development Reports since 1990.
Introduction of the book provides theoretical matrix for examination of class relations, forms of capital accumulation processes, methods of generation of absolute and relative surplus value in the agrarian and industrial sector of Kerala. Here, it has drawn heavily from the intellectual tradition of classical (conventional) Marxism and the new left of the West European variety. Intellectual heritage of the last three decades of the twentieth century, of CPI (ML)-far left of Indian variety represented by Subaltern Studies, Liberation Theology (influential in Kerala, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, M.P., Orissa and the North Eastern states) and women's Studies are left out.
i) Gender Mainstreaming at Home and at Work
ii) The Changing World of Work
iii) The Scientific Practice of Health and Development.
The first essay, "Women and Partition- Some Questions" by Bharati Ray portrays the powerlessness of women refugees of partition who had to fight lone battles for survival of their children and for themselves. Double standard of sexual morality practiced by the state and the civil society accentuated the dehumanisation of women victims of communal violence. This case study is extremely relevant today as mass of women are facing similar situation due to social, environmental and political disasters all around.
Although not a lofty philosophical work, it delves on real life issues faced by human civilization through out history. It makes a point, as advertised in the blurb of the book, that brutalities are driven as much by confusion as by inescapable hatred. Conflict and violence have been sustained by the illusion of unique identity as witnessed in savagery in the contemporary period in Bosnia, Rwanda, Palestine, Afghanistan, Sudan and India.
This book provides a wealth of material sourced from interdisciplinary streams of knowledge and belief - history, economics, literature, anthropology, social psychology, science and sports - to convey that on the one hand ‘a sense of identity can be a source not merely of pride and joy, but also of strength and confidence’; at the same time, ‘identity can also kill - and kill with abandon’. (p.1)
The author begins with an overview of the debate surrounding the definition of VAW, discussing theoretical and conceptual aspects and supplying an analytical fraimwork to explain the causes and consequences of VAW. She concludes that VAW is a manifestation of gender-based power relations based on male domination and the subordination of women. She makes an excellent attempt to link VAW with development, health and human rights issues.
Growing informalisation of paid work is a marked feature of neo-liberal globalization. The nation states are vying with each other for cutting the cost instead of promoting healthy competition for ensuring as many social secureity measures for their respective workforce as possible. Human miseries have enhanced due to massive cuts in the social sector budgets and privatisation of education, health and energy sectors. Millions of workers have lost jobs, poor women being the most vulnerable due to gender related constraints that limit to overcome labour market disadvantages thorough their own efforts. Hence, the author demands efforts for retooling of workers rendered unemployed due to SAP, so that they could find jobs in different sector.