💪 Mind the Gap: Women ruling the headlinesA month when women have dominated the headlines, Namita writes about Operation Sindoor, Jyothi Yarraji, Elon Musk, Emmanuel Macron, Taylor Swift, and Joel Le Scouarnec.
Welcome to Mind the Gap!Namita Bhandare recently moved you from another platform to Mind the Gap, hosted on Substack. New posts will be automatically delivered to you via email or via the Substack app. Good morning readers, I’m back, rejuvenated, rested and raring to go, after a family vacation. What have I missed? A month when women have been making the headlines. Here’s how: Sindoor and its aftermath
How many military operations can you name? Most will remember Operation Blue Star, when Indira Gandhi ordered troops into the Golden Temple in 1984, some might have heard of Operation Vijay that led to the incorporation of Goa, Daman and Diu into India in 1961. There’s the chummy Operation Maitri which delivered humanitarian aid to Nepal in 2015. There is no ambiguity about Operation Sindoor, the name reportedly chosen personally by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that refers to the red vermillion powder worn by married Hindu women, to avenge the killing of their husbands by terrorists in Pahalgam. In choosing the name, the prime minister, who has consistently sought to project himself as a champion of nari shakti, was seeking to put women at the heart of India’s retaliation against terror camps located within Pakistan. Not everyone got the memo.
Op Sindoor did not protect Himanshi Narwal whose photograph seated beside the body of her husband, Navy Lieutenant Vinay Narwal on April 22 became emblematic of the tragedy. But, days later when she publicly denounced hatred and appealed for peace, she came under severe troll attack. Commentators like Frontline editor Vaishna Roy who tweeted her criticism of the name, Operation Sindoor for its “patriarchy, ownership of women, ‘honour’ killings, chastity” and so on also came under troll attack. Then there were those like BJP member of Parliament Ram Chander Jangra who castigated the women who lost their loved ones for failing to show fighting spirit. Other motormouth BJP leaders such as Vijay Shah, a minister in the Madhya Pradesh government questioned the credentials of Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, one of two women army spokeswomen, as a ‘sister’ of terrorists. Following a Supreme Court-ordered investigation into his atrocious statement, Shah quickly clarified that his words were a “linguistic mistake”. At an NDA meeting, Modi cautioned leaders from speaking out of turn. Yet, even the government’s stated concern for women citizens did not prevent it from including BJP member of Parliament M.J. Akbar in its outreach delegation. Accused of sexual harassment by at least 20 women journalists, including one who said he had raped her, Akbar stepped down as minister of state for external affairs in 2018 and has subsequently lost a defamation suit he filed against one of his detractors. That case is now in appeal at the Delhi high court. In a statement, the Network of Women in Media said: “his presence in the delegation undermines the values India seeks to project abroad.” In numbers
The proportion of women in rural areas who can perform online banking transactions is up to 30% from 17.1% in 2022-23. Source: Survey by the statistics ministry reported in The Indian Express. Watch
The daughter of a security guard and a domestic worker, Jyothi Yarraji picked up gold in the 100m hurdle at the Asian Athletic Championships in South Korea, clocking a new Championships record of 12.96 seconds. Watch here. News you may have missed
Sister Anupama Kelamangalathuveliyil, one of the nuns who led protests against Bishop Franco Mulakkal, accused of raping a junior nun, has left her religious congregation. Of the five nuns who led the protest, three have left the congregation and returned to their families. The SouthFirst has details here. A Delhi court has accepted the closure report filed by Delhi Police in the sexual harassment case under Pocso against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. The case was filed by a wrestler who was a minor at the time of the alleged incident who later withdrew her complaint. Being a woman judge is no guarantee against gender-specific abuse. On Monday, the Delhi high court refused to reduce the two-year jail term of advocate Sanjay Rathore, for outraging the modesty of a woman judicial officer in 2015. Rathore had abused the woman metropolitan magistrate in a Kakardooma court after his matter was adjourned. News from elsewhere
The sentencing of Joel Le Scouarnec, a 74-year-old French former surgeon, to 20 years in jail for the rape and sexual assault of hundreds of patients, mostly children, over a two-decade period has left child rights activists angry for the loopholes it has exposed in the French legal system. Convicted of possessing child pornography pictures back in 2005, Le Scouarnec was, shockingly, allowed to continue his medical practice, including with children. As a result, he continued to abuse sedated and unconscious children in his hospitals for another 12 years until his arrest in 2017 for another case concerning the rape of four children, including two nieces. Le Scouarnec is already serving out a 15-year-sentence for his conviction in that case. Under French law, he will serve only the additional years after the first sentence is complete and could be eligible for release in just six years. The law does allow a post-sentence preventive detention that applies to the country’s most dangerous offenders. But the judge chose not to apply it. Why so lenient France? Read more here.
Taylor Swift has triumphed in a long and hugely publicised fight to own the master recordings of her first six albums. The Guardian has a good analytical piece on why this is a potentially major win for the music industry. Read here. First it was French president Emmanuel Macron getting shoved in the face by his wife Brigitte that sparked endless speculation (he claimed they were just fooling around) and then it was Elon Musk who in the memorable words of New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd “came to Washington with a chain saw and left with a black eye” who explained away his shiner as horsing around with X, his five-year-old son. South Korea goes to the polls this week. Here’s why women who led protests against the last president aren’t happy with the choices they face. That’s it for this week. If you have a tip, feedback, criticism, please write to me at: namita.bhandare@gmail.com, or reply to this mail. Edited and produced by Shashwat Mohanty.
|
💪 Mind the Gap: Women ruling the headlines
June 01, 2025
0
