The Time is Now: Feminist Leadership for a New Era:

 I am very happy to share with my family, friends, students and well wishers that the Global Network of UNESCO Chairs on Gender Collaboration, communication and innovation in Gender Research and Practices has published a book, The Time is Now: Feminist Leadership for a New Era: ( Eds),  Araceli Alonso and Teresa Langle de Paz, from University of Wisconsin-Madison(2019).These are case studies finally  picked out from among the three thousand cases from around the world  and the final ones that are published include besides India from  Venezuala, Spain, Brazil, USA, Canada, Mexico, Arab Emirates, Hungary. My case study on women fighting Liquor barons in Andhra Pradesh ," Emergence of grass root leadership among women in the fight against Arrack (Liquor) ", finds a place in it. After this case study was selected,  i was asked to submit an abstract and I passed the first stage when they liked it and  in the second stage I was asked to write a paper of six thousand words. After this was cleared, I was asked in the third stage to concise it to 3000 words and this was a  real challenge. I struggled a lot and it was difficult to let go of words that were so important to me. I was not sure if I could really do this and convey all that I wanted. However, I did succeed and this was done and finally  this has been published now. This was a Project,  I  had got from the Department of Women and Child Welfare, Ministry of Human Resources, Government of India and from 1994- 1996,  for three years, as part of this Project, I had covered this movement followed it and  had thousand of pages of material, interviews,  photographs and video material along with a big report. It was fun accepting the challenge and putting this into 3000 words and as I see the  outcome , I am elated.   I am also attaching few Photographs from  that period, when I was much younger and did not mind getting into a crowd, mingling with them, travelling long distances into districts, all  for the purpose of research. I am not sure if I can still do this today. This project taught me that the line between research and activism is thin as far as gender is concerned.

Interacting with Symbiosis, Nagpur

 A wonderful visit to Symbiosis, Nagpur to interact with their newly admitted students in to the Law program. The Director  of the Institute Dr. Sukhwinder Dari, a very soft spoken person, but with great administrative skills, has now achieved the distinction of establishing and building many Symbiosis Law schools in Noida, Hyderabad and now Nagpur. He took me around the Institute and I was very happy to see the State of Art building which can compete with the  world. The magnificent buildings have come up in a years time in a campus spread over seventy five acres. A lot of work is still going on and this was their first batch that had cleared the entrance exam and were selected. I find these youngsters very  focused and articulate and it is fun interacting with them. I can imagine this as a beautiful campus five years from now when it will have a lot of greenery around with trees. Dr. Dari told me about the founder of Symbiosis, Dr. S. B. Majumdar who had started this initiative from a small room in his own place. Today he has succeeded in establishing an educational empire. He is  awarded the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan for his efforts. Indeed today they have their schools in  Poona, Noida, Hyderabad and Nagpur and in future they plan to expand to Lucknow and Ahmedabad. I am sure the other Schools will also provide world class education with an equally impressive infrastructure. Indeed a great experience and thanks a lot Dr. Dari for inviting me and showing me your beautiful campus.

Workshop with Studetns from Europe

 A talk on Gender issues at the Study India program. Today from ten in the morning to three thirty in the afternoon, with an hour break in between, I had a discussion with the students from Europe. This was a  small group of students from Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and US who were visiting India for the first time. Though my talk was only on Women's work in the Informal sector in the old city of Hyderabad, they had so many questions and we ended up discussing every thing under the sun related to gender issues in India from history, to politics, to economy, society, culture, violence, trafficking and many more such issues. It was a great feeling to learn about other cultures too and realise at the end that inspite of the difference in our societies and culture women every where around the world are dealing with similar issues.

National Archives of India

 Having used the British Library extensively just recently this shocks me. In the British Library no pens are allowed, only pencils. If you take a document they have three chits, yellow colour, green and blue. The three different groups of tables where the particular document which has the coloured chit can be taken,  is based on its value. The manuscript, I took was for the yellow table, which is a highly valued document and no photos, Scan or Xerox is allowed but one can take notes on the lap top. One cannot leave this  manuscript even for a short break and it has to be handed back if we leave the table even for few minutes. I was very impressed as to how the manuscript and documents are preserved for posterity. We keep complaining that we do  not have the finances and resources to preserve our documents  but more important, we do  not have a sense of pride in preserving our past and treat the relics of the past in a very casual manner.

The wire had a big write up. Something is rotten about the state of the National Archives of India. The heritage Lutyens building houses priceless historical documents, “stored in over 40 km of shelf space”, according to Sanjay Garg, deputy director of the archives. These include documents dating back to 1748, a rich collection of private papers, over 7,500 microfilm rolls and records from several countries. Scholars, academics, authors, journalists and students frequent the repository. Outstanding works by renowned authors and researchers have emanated from this goldmine.

One would think that the guardians of the National Archives would make it their bounden duty to protect and preserve our nation’s written history. However, the horror story begins here.

Thanks to callous mishandling by staff and scholars alike, priceless documents have ended up dog-eared and annotated. Staff at the research room mandate scholars to number all the pages of a document selected for photocopying. Some scholars highlight portions important to them using coloured pens ­­– on original documents. Fragile and aged archival pages are flipped through several times by each scholar; while photocopying, these are disengaged from the file, only to be put back in a haphazard manner. As a result, documents end up with multiple page markings, at times right in the middle of a priceless document.  This defacement happens every day, on treasure that belongs to the next generation.

NAAC Second day Vizag

 The second day at NAAC was again a very hectic day with lot of going around, examining documents, facilities and working on the report. After the exit meeting in the evening every one wanted to have a  photo and many photos were clicked. No visit to Vizag can be complete  with out a visit to the beach and so in the evening we walked around the beach, touched the sea water and had a very relaxed time.

NAAC visit in Visakhapatnam

Today the day was spent in St Joseph College for Women at Visakhapatnam. This college had started in a small way in 1958 with 6 faculty and 28 students but today this college has 1880 students,145 faculty, 25 departments and 19 UG and PG programs. Located in the heart of the city it has a campus of seven acres. In its vicinity it also has a hundred and seventeen years old church. There was a tile on the roof which said 1902.Besides students from different parts of the country it also has students from different countries in Africa, Malaysia, Afghanistan etc. The students, including the foreign ones put up a beautiful cultural programme in the evening. A very hectic but enjoyable day going around different departments, seeing their infrastructure, various facilities, interacting with Alumni, parents, teachers, non teaching staff. It amazes me to see so much creativity in our different educational institutions all around the country and though they work with so many constraints they are able to bring out the best in the students.

Meeting my Old friend Ashima Singh

 A great time at Hyderabad meeting an old friend from College days, Ashima Singh who had joined the Railways and has now retired from The All India Railways as its Director at IRITM at Lucknow. We used to roam around Allahabad in  cycles then more than five decades back and spent the time catching up, as if it was yesterday that we had parted. Also, the cherry on the cake was, the wonderful evening and thanks Subham Pande for inviting us for a lovely evening of music and food at Oakwood Residency. Oakwood is now having a great variety of programs for its anniversary and this is the third one that I attended and they have had stand up comedies, gazal  and others interesting events lined up  each year. This year, besides the regular music band, they had two artists who were doing cartoon  sketches. This was the  best part of the evening besides of course the music, drinks and the food was,  when we sat down to get our cartoon sketches made. Reminded me of the cartoons of R. K.Lakshman when he had the cartoon of famous politicians especially Indira Gandhi with her characteristic long nose. Pity, the artist could not find any characteristic features for me. Oh,but what fun.

Simbiosis Law School, Hyderabad

 An interesting interaction with the newly admitted students at Simbiosis Law School, Hyderabad, about 300 of them, who were being introduced to different aspects of the School, its administration, departments, its activities, through their week long induction programme. They had also kept a session  for Gender Sensitisation. It is always a pleasure addressing and discussing with these students. They are very sharp and are selected through an All India Examination and if they are sensitised it will indeed be great.It is always fills my heart with a lot of happiness to see young students taking so much interest in Gender issues.