By Manjima Bhattacharjya

The Supreme Court of India recently asked the government why they don’t legalise prostitution if they can’t curb it. But do women in sex work really want a piece of paper called a license? Or police reforms that may lead to freedom from extortion, convictions against traffickers rather than new laws, directives and campaigns that make discrimination against women in prostitution legally punishable and socially condemnable? More...

On May 17, 2009, four women were elected to the Kuwaiti parliament as MPs for the first time ever, spelling progress and change in the region. Indeed, the Middle East has been a black hole in the history of feminism, says Manjima Bhattacharjya, and we have only just begun to understand the unique issues and positions of women here More...

For 15 years the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women has helped bring VAW into the public domain as something more than a ‘private issue’. But have all these conceptual breakthroughs trickled down to the ground, asks Manjima Bhattacharjya More...

Manjima Bhattacharjya traces the history of March 8, International Women’s Day, back to the 1857 agitation for dignity and equality in the workplace, a battle not yet won More...

By Manjima Bhattacharjya

Why is there such a resurgence of the moral police in recent times, threatening women in jeans or beating up women who go pubbing, as in Mangalore recently? Is it because ‘morality’ has historically been a powerful tool of social and political control, and now there is a fear that women are going out of control, and must be contained? More...

The Indian State and citizens are pledging to fight against political terror. But what about the sexual terror that all women have faced, survived and continue to silently battle? Why has no government ever called for a war against this kind of terror, asks Manjima Bhattacharjya More...

When a black woman with empathy and a single mother who writes about magic speak about empathy, service and compassion on graduation day at Stanford and Harvard, does it finally signify that values once rejected as ‘feminine’ and invalid are finding a voice and a space, asks Manjima Bhattacharjya as she flags off a new column on feminism’s Third Wave More...