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Rajasthan

By Avani Bansal

https://youtu.be/zAlocxtcir4

Jaisalmer Fort in Rajasthan is one of the few ‘living forts’ in India, where several people who once worked for the king who ruled the palace, have built their own restaurants and hotels inside the fort, making it a tourist’s delight. 

As per local stories, when the Government of India decided to take over all the forts, the king of Jaisalmer decided to give parts of the Fort to the people who worked there. This is how several people came to have a part of the fort as their own private places. 

Today, the fort is a bustling marketplace with several Rajasthan delicacies and traditionally renovated ‘havelis’/hotels wooing tourists at unimaginably affordable prices. 

We came across Bhavani Singh’s ‘The Desert Gallery’, which is located right at the entrance of the fort wall. The beautiful and colourful patch work (a traditional art form done by women mostly) laden wall hangings were unmissable. We paused to speak to Bhavani Singh and learnt a great detail about this work.

In this video Bhavani Singh shares his own story, how he got motivated to work towards preserving this traditional art form and interestingly – how the different colours used in the patch work denote different castes in desert areas. Blue, he informs us, is worn by Brahmin women, red by Rajput women, so and so forth. Also the detailing in the work is much revealing of the religious group and sub-group which has produced it. Bhavani shared with us how the value of these hand-made items is reducing as there are very few who appreciate this art form. He says that it is mostly foreigners who buy these items in large quantities but because of COVID, all the artists have greatly suffered for the last two years. All this patch work wall hangings are made by women in the villages who sometimes take months to produce them. Bhavani shares that he ensures that parts of the profits are shared with these women so they are incentivised to continue evolving this art form. 

Do watch this video and if you like any of this work, you can directly contact Bhavani Singh at +1 91 9414763000. You can also check out their page at Instagram @desert_art_gallery. 

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By Bhoomika Chaudhary

When I first visited Karauli in Rajasthan for work, I was shaken! I saw unfathomable misery around. Village after village filled with widows of sandstone workers affected by a deadly disease called Silicosis. They are drowned with debt, without enough money for their children’s education, food, health or other necessary expenses.

I wanted to do something to alleviate their misery and bring about the change I wanted to see. We are taking the first step towards that by starting a project, with an incredible NGO Daang Vikas Sansthan, to support such widows by providing a source of livelihood.

This will be done by giving them goats. These goats will give them milk and curd for many years before they can be sold in the market for money.

Please come forward, donate and become a part of someone’s life who needs you!

Payment details can be fetched by sending a message to +91 91363 65065.

Watch Here :

जब मैं पहली बार राजस्थान में काम के लिए करौली गई थी, तो मैं हिल गई थी! मैंने चारों ओर अथाह दुख देखा। सिलिकोसिस नामक घातक बीमारी से पीड़ित बलुआ पत्थर श्रमिकों की विधवाओं से भरा गांव दर गांव देखा। वे अपने बच्चों की शिक्षा, भोजन, स्वास्थ्य या अन्य आवश्यक खर्चों के लिए पर्याप्त धन के बिना, कर्ज में डूबे हुए हैं।

मैं उनके दुखों को कम करने और मैं जो बदलाव देखना चाहती थी, उसे लाने के लिए कुछ करना चाहती थी I हम एक एनजीओ ‘डांग विकास संस्थान’ के साथ एक परियोजना शुरू करके उस दिशा में पहला कदम उठा रहे हैं, जिससे ऐसी विधवाओं को आजीविका का स्रोत प्रदान किया जा सके।

यह उन्हें बकरियां देकर किया जाएगा। पैसे के लिए बाजार में बिकने से पहले ये बकरियां उन्हें कई सालों तक दूध और दही देती रहेंगी।
कृपया आगे आएं, दान करें और किसी ऐसे व्यक्ति के जीवन का हिस्सा बनें जिसे आपकी आवश्यकता है!

भुगतान विवरण +91 91363 65065 पर संदेश भेजकर प्राप्त किया जा सकता है।

यहां देखें:

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Ashmi Sheth

1989-batch IPS officer, Nina Singh became the first woman to earn a director general (DG) rank (civil rights and anti-human trafficking) in the state of Rajasthan on Sunday. Originally from Bihar, Patna, Nina Singh was posted as the additional director general (ADG) in the Rajasthan police force. Last year, in October, she had received Ati Utkrisht Seva Medal by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs for professional excellence and thus became the first ADG-level officer from Rajasthan to do so. She has also been awarded the Police Medal in 2005.

Nina Singh has worked as a Joint Director with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), New Delhi, and has worked on various important cases including the PNB scam and Nirav Modi. Nina Singh has also been active in research and has co-authored two research papers with Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, based on police reforms and evidence-based policing in the context of Rajasthan. In Rajasthan, she has also headed Jaipur and Ajmer police ranges as Deputy IG and IG respectively. IPS Nina Singh has a degree in Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard University, USA. In this major bureaucratic reshuffle, Rajasthan government transferred 13 IFS officers and promoted two IPS officers. IPS Umesh Mishra ADG (Intelligence) was also promoted to the rank of DG (Intelligence) along with IPS Nina Singh. According to a report, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had a major role in promoting IPS officer Nina Singh to the rank of DG (Intelligence). The report further states that Nina Singh’s term at various ranks throughout her career has been without a single glitch even though she has served in volatile and sensitive districts like Ajmer. This step by Gehlot is considered to be a pragmatic move toward woman empowerment and would be marked as a historical feat for Rajasthan Police Force.

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Anuj Dahiya

Kriti Sanon and Pankaj Tripathi starrer film, Mimi is the latest attempt by Bollywood to bring the taboo topic of surrogacy back in the mainstream (last being Chori Chori Chupke Chupke 2001). The film showcases the story of Mimi, played by Kriti giving her career best performance, who wishes to become a heroine in Mumbai and for which she is saving money. It is through a typical dance number (Bikaner ki chokri, Santre ki tokri) when an American couple wandering in India for over a year, John and Summer, the intended parents, see in Mimi a potential surrogate mother. Bhanu played by the enigmatic Pankaj Tripathi, plays the broker in here and convinces Mimi to be a surrogate and get compensated in return. Considering the huge money prospects involved, she agrees to it without much delay. The film is set in a small town of Rajasthan in the year 2013. The twist comes when the American couple abandons Mimi and the baby in womb in between and our surrogate Mimi is left all by herself. This tragic turn of events has been the harsh realities for many in India.

Legalised in 2002, India has become a hub of commercial surrogacy, so much that it has been called a baby factory. Commercial surrogacy is legal in Russia, Ukraine and some States of the USA, but considering the cheaper costs, India becomes a preferable destination. A report estimates it to be worth more than $400, but the ethics of the practice has been largely questioned.

As in Mimi, the reference of khet, ganna, beej to the commercial surrogacy, the practise has led to the commodification of reproductive labour and women’s body. It is accused of treating the child as a good, reproduction as a service to be traded and establishing control over women’s bodies. Commercial surrogacy is likened to organ sale rackets. There is also power dynamics involved where the rich try to rent the womb for themselves, the surrogates coming from the lowest economic rungs of society. Coming out of dire property, their consent to be surrogates can hardly be called informed. It is coercive since refusal is mostly difficult. Also, in majority of the cases, they are illiterate and barely get a copy of the contract signed. The broker keeps a major chunk of the compensation.

The commercial surrogacy in India has largely flourished because of absence of regulations and red-tapism. Come 2014 and the NDA government comes up with Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill which intended to ban commercial surrogacies over night. It allowed only altruistic surrogacy from close family members which would cover medical expenses and insurance and will be limited to Indian heterosexual and infertile couples, having completed five years of marriage. This bill was passed by Lok Sabha in 2015 but could not steer through the upper house of parliament and was therefore, referred to a select committee. The Select Committee headed by Bhupendra Yadav, after consulting various stakeholders suggested that widows and divorced women be included, the five year marriage and infertility clause be removed from the bill. The bill accepting the recommendations is still pending in the Parliament.

But the bill has its share of shortcomings even now. It falls short of taking into account the rights of live-in couples and LGBTQ community who wish to start a family beyond the traditional nation of parents. The community has started to get legal recognition in India and their rights need to be protected. Further the interests of surrogates have also been ignored as banning surrogacy straight away leaves them out of economic opportunities and their chance to improve their lot. As Dr Patel of Akanksha Hospital, Anand, Gujarat says, Banning is never the solution. The ban will give rise to an underground market for surrogacy which will only worsen the situation for poor women. 

The movie in the end strikes the right chords by focusing on adoption as a viable option. As it is conveyed, “If the orphaned children were to be a country, it would be the 7th largest in the world.” You can watch Mimi on Netflix and Jio Cinemas.

Anuj Dahiya

A student of Political Science

Instagram: @anuj__dahiya

Twiter: @unujdahiya

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