Evescape

CRAFT for a CAUSE Even as the pandemic continues to create havoc and devastate lives, the statistics of toll on lives is troubling. While governments are gearing up to gather data and target policy to keep all citizens equally safe, sheltered and secure, experts believe that the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 fall harder on women than on men. For many women, the pandemic means she has no work, no wages, and the family has been reduced to heartbreaking dependence on charity.  Even as emerging stories of salary cuts, furloughs, unpaid leave and retrenchment are heart wrenching, the good part is that there are organisations and individuals who are putting efforts to address these issues in a bid to empower that segment of the population that is currently undervalued and underutilized. They have devised programs and initiatives to improve the lives of women and are attempting to build stronger communities. One such initiative named Stitch in Time -- a project to provide livel...

    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...

Vaishnavi Hegde Yoga goes online in lockdown EVESCAPE News Features/  GOA :   While yoga is termed as a sustainable practice and a holistic health option that everyone can access, adapt and learn, especially in times of social distancing and ‘work from home’ scenario -- practitioners and instructors of the age old discipline have now shifted to online classes.  In the same spirit, Ponda based yoga teacher Dr. Aruna Bhadauria uses the zoom app to teach yoga. Pranayam Bhastrika, Kapalbharti, Anulom Vilom, Bhramari and Udgeeth are some of the asanas best fit for practicing from home, says the Patanjali Yog  Samithi in charge. "These asanas can be performed easily  at home to improve immunity. It has been suggested by renowned yoga guru Baba Ramdev. Yoga helps improve mental and physical health," say s Bhadauria. Yoga teachers have long wanted to get online, appreciating the power  of the internet to help touch more lives with their teaching, but fear of th...