Reproductive Justice Discourse vis-à-vis Abortion Law in India: A Critical Review

The narrative concerning third-world women has long been considered regressive, discriminatory, and monistic. The legal narratives, too, could not escape the traditional trope of identity ascribed to women. Though essentially empowering, the practical realisation of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act of 1971 could never harness a sense of inclusivity until the amendment of 2021. But the seven categories of women included in the amended Act did not consider the issues of pregnancy arising out of a consensual sexual encounter (contraceptive failure) for an unmarried woman. For the first time, the Supreme Court of India has recognised the concept of agency for all women without any external factor functioning as an influence. The idea of choice has never been celebrated. Thus, in the context of contemporary India, where the idea of the metanarrative of identity appears imminent and the third-world postmodern feminism celebrates the ideals of intersectionality, the legal discourse of deconstructing the difference among women in the name of marital status to strip them of their fundamental rights to bodily autonomy and reproductive justice needs intervention. This review paper intends to diachronically approach the existing data of empirical and critical research on abortion vis-à-vis the human rights discourse in the context of Indian women

Exploring the Margins of Kotha Culture : Reconstructing a Courtesan’s life in Neelum Saran Gour’s \u3cem\u3eRequiem in Raga Janki\u3c/em\u3e

In their article, “Exploring the Margins of Kotha Culture: Reconstructing a Courtesan’s life in Neelum Saran Gour’s Requiem in Raga Janki,” Chhandita Das and Priyanka Tripathi discuss the invisible challenges in life of a famous courtesan Janki Bai Ilahabadi through close analysis of Neelum Saran Gour’s 2018 novel, Requiem in Raga Janki. In this novel, Janki belongs to the infamous kotha but she never fails to seek her subjectivity. This marginal place of Janaki’s belonging will be discussed by appropriating and the theoretical framework of Indian feminist Lata Singh’s (2007) for whom courtesans have been represented as “‘other’ in history” (1677). Other than Singh, bell hooks’ ‘margin as a space of radical openness’ (Yearning 228), Veena Oldenburg’s spectacular scholarship on courtesans’ in ‘Lifestyle as Resistance’ (1990) will be synthesized to deconstruct the social hierarchy. Although baijis or tawaifs in India possess rich artistic heritage but surprisingly enough they have been often in a questionable space wherein their individual and social integrity has been compromised. Gour attempts to rewrite life of a courtesan from Allahabad and in the process creates an alternative discourse or understanding of a courtesan’s life through Janki, matron, yes! not patron of Indian classical music and tradition

Film Review: Indigenous Epistemology, Media, and the Representation of Women in Kantara

Cinematic works around indigenous lives in India have long been marginalized within the scope of “film as an entertaining art form.” Striking a balance between a faithful rendition of an indigenous community and the infusion of entertainment seemed impossible within the Indian film industry until Kantara struck the silver screen. Since its release, the film has been subjected to constructive and positive criticism, but the representation of women in the film has either remained unattended to or viewed negatively. This research paper intends to approach the use of indigenous media and epistemology in the film as a symptomatic representation of fourth cinema and then to address the representation of women from the perspective of faithful representation and indigeneity

Comprehending the Bleeding Body: Epistemological Violence and (Un)Tabooing Menstruation in Selective Media Texts in India

The representation of menstruation in Indian media texts (films, short films, and advertisements) is limited. Besides the advertisement of industrially produced sanitary napkins, we hardly come across their mention. Even in cinematic spaces with female leads, the issue remains unuttered. Since the last half of the previous decade, there has been a conscious attempt to raise awareness around menstruation. Considering menstruation as a socially mediated biological process, in which bodies become sites where social constructions of differences are mapped onto human beings to inflict violence upon the subject, these works have resisted this systematic patriarchal oppression by asking an appropriate question, “which bodies are producing knowledge about which other bodies?” (Harcourt, 2009, p. 13), indicating that this assigning of impurity to menstruation through myths, taboos, and restrictions is a patriarchal construct. In many parts of India, menstruating women are not even allowed inside the kitchen or the temple. This forced isolation is indeed gender-based violence, which is driven by socio-cultural and religious beliefs compounded with gender norms. The research paper argues that by reading menstruation through the lens of body politics and in the context of media representation currently prevalent in India, it is now possible to understand and decode menstruation as a phenomenon of gendered oppression. Additionally, through these compelling narratives, it is also possible to reflect on the process by which these interventions contribute to the altering of everyday practices and their limitations. This might lead to social change by demystifying taboos around the menstrual body and showing women their situation in a way that affirms they can act to change it and reconstruct a meaningful relationship to their bodies

A Review On Green Cloud Computing

The objective of green computing is to reap monetary growth and enhance the way the computing devices are used. In large data centers computational offloading is main problem due to increased demand for timely and response for real time application which lead to high energy consumption by data centers, so the aim of green computing is to find energy efficient solution which monopolize optimal utilization of the available resources. Green IT methods comprises of environmentally viable management, energy efficient computers and enhanced recycling procedures. By using different algorithm and energy efficient scheduling power consumption of virtual machine can be minimize, this paper provide an overview of different algorithms and techniques which are used to move towards the green computing

History and/through Oral Narratives: Relocating Women of the 1971 War of Bangladesh in Neelima Ibrahim’s A War Heroine, I Speak

In the postmodern era, one of the primary objectives of oral narratives is to tell the untold stories of history. Amidst the allegations that historical representation of war narratives often tends to be gendered and biased, these oral narratives of women offer not only a fresh perspective to the wars like the 1971 war of Bangladesh, Sri Lankan Civil War (1983 – 2009) and Kashmir Insurgency (1989 – Present), but also become their own version of pain, suffering, prejudice, and plight. In that sense, they become the voice of the voiceless, giving the victims a chance to assert themselves, despite their subaltern position. They also converge as tools to reinvestigate or rather question the ‘representation’ of war history and the politics of submerging women in traditional documented historiography. In the context of the 1971 war of Bangladesh, Neelima Ibrahim’s Aami Birangana Balchi (first published in Bengali in 1994, translated in English as A War Heroine, I Speak by Fayeza Hasanat in 2017), was the first narrative of its own kind that addressed victimization and survival of the Biranganas or literal brave heroines of the 1971 war. Ibrahim, being an active member of the humanitarian group ‘Bangladesh Women’s Rehabilitation and Welfare Foundation’ was a close observer of their struggle and thus, she recorded their narratives and published it. In a theoretical framework, where oral narratives play a seminal role in this sort of representations, this paper will broadly discuss Neelima Ibrahim’s narratives of Biranganas of the 1971 war of Bangladesh

Gendered and Casteist Body: Cast(e)ing and Castigating the Female Body in select Bollywood Films

This study analyzes the lopsided relationship between gender and caste and the intertwining body politics in select Bollywood films. Bandit Queen (1994) and Article 15 (2019) are films that depict marginalized Dalit women—victims of (s)exploitation and twofold oppressions of graded patriarchy. Based upon real incidents, Bandit Queen tells the tale of Phoolan Devi who is gang-raped by the upper caste Thakur Shri Ram and his clans of the village while Article 15 takes recourse to the gruesome Badayun rape case of 2014 and presents the murder and possible rape of two lower caste young girls. In both the films, the marginalized women are imprisoned and ghettoized in the “mutual bracketing” (Guru 112) of caste and gender. Their bodies thus become the ploys of the power dynamics of a caste-ridden society. The body is to be captured, controlled, and incarcerated by both the apparatus of hegemonic masculinity and the hierarchical ladder of the caste system. Dalit women’s bodies are the territories that are to be possessed through the weapons of sexual violence; the gang rape “perpetrated by the conquerors is a metonymic celebration of territorial acquisition” (Spivak 303). Within the framework triad of caste studies, gender studies, and body politics studies, this paper investigates dynamics of power through a detailed analysis of the films and aims to point out whether and how the films make any differentiations from the real incidents. These films produce socially conscious visual landscapes directed at a society that horridly bears spectacular and brutal realities that are often swept under the rug

PVA Based Polymer Electrolyte with Layered Filler Graphite for Natural Dye Sensitized Solar Cell

Graphite nanopowder is synthesized by mechanical method using ball mill and used as filler in polymer electrolyte film based on Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) for application in natural dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). In the present work dye sensitized solar cell has been assembled using electrolyte system composed of PVA as host polymer, ethylene carbonate as plasticizer, LiI: I2 as redox couple and graphite as filler; TiO2 modified with Copper oxide (CuO) photoanode in order to provide inherent energy barrier and natural cocktail dye as sensitizer. The obtained solar cell conversion efficiency was about 3.2 % with fill factor 52% using an irradiation of 100 mW/cm2 at 25º C