Evescape

    OPINION Am I allowed in? By Dr. Shalini Yadav I love writing. Over time my writing revolved around being a mother, a daughter, a wife, in my roles of a woman. I’d never imagined that there will come a day when I would be writing from the outside in. As someone who falls in an hitherto unexplored category…a widow. I found that all occasions in the world for celebrating womanhood leave this one category of woman out. Every such celebration brings into startling focus in a widow’s mind the question… Am I allowed in? What am I supposed to do? Where do I fit in with this huge multitude with a significant part of whose life I can no longer identify? Whose ongoing stories of love, companionship, shared responsibilities I can empathise but not identify with anymore. It’s no longer a world I inhabit. No longer the path I walk. Who am I? Where do I belong? Because like it or not, a widow is a pariah, even to the women’s world. Even today. Subtly, but surely. It wasn’t until I was be...

COVID-19 impact social life & learning of CHILDREN By Percy Cardozo The COVID-19 outbreak was like a bolt out of the blue, stopping the world in its tracks. Cutting across all boundaries - natural or man-made, it has struck us silently at lightning speeds, causing unusual disruption to our daily routines. Never in recorded history has the world experienced such a catastrophe simultaneously affecting almost all regions of the world. The pandemic is primarily a health crisis but is it also having shattering consequences on every aspect of our living. The insidious virus has forced countries across the world to use lockdown as a preventive measure for the safety of its citizens.   Countries have rightly resorted to lock down as a preventive measure, nevertheless, suddenly it has thrown children's social life and learning out of gear. According to UNESCO, as of April 2020, 1.5 billion young people worldwide are out of school because of the pandemic. In India, almost 1.4 millio...