Inspiring Stories

16.05.2008 Lacking support from the government, a group of tribal women from a remote district in Orissa in eastern India, devised a unique way to get rid of water scarcity. By using bamboo pipes to carry stream water to the villages, these women have benefited hundreds of people.

07.04.2008 What often goes unreported in the mainstream media, finds a place in Khabar Lahariya, a truly people’s newspaper run by Dalit women in Chitrakoot in northern India. Despite their lack of education, these women journalists cover politics, development and a range of issues read by all sections of society.

11.03.2008 As a staunch communist and the first woman journalist from West Bengal in eastern India, Vidya Munsi has been at the forefront of activism for over 65 years. The 89-year old crusader was the guest of honour at a recent poster exhibition on the Indian women’s movement.

18.02.2008 A young tribal has helped the women in his village become successful entrepreneurs by realising the true potential of traditional medicines. Haribol is an all-women self-help group in Chhattisgarh in central India that profits from the state’s abundance of herbs and medicinal plants.

05.02.2008 A documentary filled with the message of hope and courage, follows a young South African HIV/AIDS activist as she crosses linguistic and cultural barriers to reach HIV positive women living in the city of Mumbai in India. The documentary is due to be shown on Indian television this year.

21.01.2008 Chitamma, an old and frail woman in eastern India’s coastal state of Orissa is the driving force behind Samudram, a state level federation of organisations of women fish workers. She has helped them become economically independent and has fought social evils such as alcoholism.

27.12.2007 The story of Anuradha, a medical student, who fought her disability to pursue her dream caught the jury’s attention at Canada’s first international film festival on disability. Girl Stars, supported by UNICEF, is a series of films that document the stories of young women and girls in India who have changed their lives, and those of others, by going to school.

16.02.2007 Mandakini Narayan, popularly known as “MA” in the new women’s movement of India, passed away on 16th December, 2006. I got to know her due to her daughter, a fellow feminist from Calicut (Kozikode), whom I met in 1978 immediately after her release from Kerala prison after 7 1/2 years of solitary confinement.

17.01.2007 Rekha Devi is a reporter for Aangan Ke Paar, a BBC World Service Trust-produced weekly radio programme broadcast from 22 AIR stations and BBC Hindi dealing with issues concerning women, especially HIV/AIDS. But unlike other such shows which rely on interviews with experts, this programme has its ears to the ground. Literally.

13.11.2006 The air was triumphant and celebratory as the first batch of 191 Indian elected women panchayat representatives formally received their graduation certificates from the Aagaz Foundation (an initiative of The Hunger Project, Delhi), in the presence of the successive batch of students, as well as the trainers, resource persons and anchors of the Aagaz academies.

28.09.2006 Mahasweta Devi, 79, is one of India's best-known writers and an activist; each persona deeply informs the other. Her work with the rights and empowerment of tribal and marginal groups - their right to forest resources, cultural rights, environmental rights, governance - is pathbreaking; as is her documentation of their struggles in her critically-acclaimed works of fiction and non-fiction.

22.09.2006 Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla are two strong women with a joint mission - securing justice for the survivors of the 1984 Union Carbide gas tragedy in Bhopal.

22.09.2006 Akeela Naz, barely 30, is already past master at weathering false accusations, attacks by government Rangers and the police, the enmity of landlords and the disapproval of maulvis (religious leaders). One of the leaders of the Anjuman Muzareen Punjab (AMP) movement - as also the first woman to join the movement - Naz has been fighting to secure the rights of tenant farmers.

22.09.2006 Ruth Manorama, 42, born in Chennai (Tamil Nadu), grew up seeing her parents engaged in active social work, and developed an early inclination for the work herself. Her mother, Dorothy Dhanraj, was interested in women's education. Always a rebel, she converted to Christianity in her teens. She was also deeply influenced by Pandita Rama Bai. This is how Ruth got her second name 'Manorama' - after Rama Bai's eldest daughter.

20.09.2006 Ebadon Bibi was once just another daily-wage labourer in Bangladesh. Today, she is a spirited and committed activist fighting for the rights of landless people, particularly women. Her work has brought about a sea change in the life and attitude of the landless persons in her village and surrounding areas.

20.09.2006 "There are those in Kerala who think that adivasis are vanavasis (inhabitants of the forest) like the elephant, the leopard and the wild buffalo." This is how Chekkottu Kariyan Janu, (born 1964), the unquestioned leader of the indigenous people in Kerala, describes the discriminatory attitude of the authorities and others towards tribals.

18.09.2006 Indrani Sinha (born 1950) has been working against violence and abuse of women for over two decades. She began her career as an English teacher in a well-known school in Kolkata. However, Sinha soon realised that her interest lay in the development sector. After some years of working on women's issues, Sinha started Sanlaap (which means dialogue) in 1987 with the support of like-minded friends and professionals.

18.09.2006 Not many do what Radhika Coomaraswamy (born 1953) did in the 1970s. This lawyer and academic returned from a brilliant academic career at Yale University and Harvard Law School to a country that was just entering a conflict based on ethnic discrimination. The native Tamils, under the leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, were waging a violent battle against the Sri Lankan government for a separate homeland. The conflict continues to this day.

18.09.2006 Anis Haroon (born 1946) began her career as a political activist early. In 1956, at the age of 10, she participated in a youth demonstration in Karachi against the occupation of the Suez Canal by the US, the UK, and France. She went on to become a debater and won more than 100 prizes and two gold medals. As a young woman, she became actively involved in the students' movement in her country in the mid-1960s against military dictator Ayub Khan, and thus being part of the movement that contributed to his downfall in 1968.

15.09.2006 Tridumpur (Assam),(Women's Feature Service) - Biro Bala Rava alias 'Bogi' was born in 1949 in Tridumpur, Goalpara district, Assam. While Biro's father, a cultivator, was illiterate, her mother had studied a little. Biro herself studied only up to Class 5. She was married at the age of 15 to Sandhi Charan Rava, a cultivator and had four children: three boys and a girl.