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Society can make the climb harder for women. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Powerful and visionary, women like Cleopatra, Anne Boleyn, and Razia Sultana shaped history with their courage and intellect. Cleopatra, a master strategist, secured Egypt’s survival amid Roman expansion. Anne, a key figure in the English Reformation, influenced a nation’s religious transformation. Razia, … Read more

Welcome to The Hindu’s newsletter that puts gender front and centre. Here, we’ll reflect on the world, cleaning up our glasses smudged from cultural conditioning. Through words, visuals, and voices we will see clearly how gender discrimination reinforces social hierarchies and worsens economic inequality. In the best tradition of sisterhood, three of us will share … Read more

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, Kartik Tudu and his brother Charan Tudu stand across from the anganwadi centre at Mathurapahari village near the Bengal-Jharkhand border, counting the SUVs that pass their mud houses. Almost 10 every half an hour, they say, some with sirens and boards that signal the arrival of ‘very important people’. “We … Read more

Research shows that sugar is as addictive as drugs. It activates the reward centre of our brain by giving us the same pleasure. | Photo Credit: Getty Images Ever since I can remember, my biggest vice has been sugar. I am fond of sweets of all shapes and kinds. Maybe it started when my mother … Read more

Be it grandkids or grandpuppies, there’s plenty of love to go around! | Photo Credit: Getty Images Whenever I attend a wedding, or meet up with relatives or friends, the talk invariably veers around to kids and grandkids. There is a silence when I say I am yet to become a grandmother. Then there are … Read more

A militia that derives its name from a peace agreement is a paradox in itself. Embodying this conundrum is the M23, or the Mouvement Du March 23, which operates in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, drawing support from neighbouring Rwanda. Taking after a failed truce deal signed on March 23, 2009, the militia, on … Read more

Flightless Antarctic midge (Belgica antarctica) is the only known insect native to Antarctica that is able to survive the extreme climate. Researchers have uncovered a part of the mystery of how the Antarctic midge copes with freezing temperatures. They found that the midge deals with the seasons during its two-year life cycle by undergoing quiescence … Read more

In the summer of 2011, Anna Hazare, a Maharashtra-based social activist, started a fast-unto-death protest in the national capital’s Ramlila Maidan, seeking a ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’ to fight corruption. The movement ‘India Against Corruption’ was quick to catch the public imagination, pulling thousands into the sprawling grounds at the heart of Delhi, as it grabbed … Read more

Neither Tamil Nadu nor its Governor Ravindra Narayan Ravi is a stranger to controversies. However, the last three-odd years of the tenure of the 72-year-old Governor, a retired IPS officer of the Kerala cadre (1976 batch), has all along been full of controversies. As an officer of the Intelligence wing in the police initially and … Read more

File photo of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee | Photo Credit: ANI On February 10, when West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose was addressing the State Assembly, the Bharatiya Janata party MLAs led by Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari took objection to the mention of Jal Swapna scheme. The LOP told journalists that the State government has … Read more