Evescape

  MATTERS of CONCERN Crimes Against Women  & Role of the Society Institutions supposedly expected to support, stand by and rally behind the victims of crime against women somehow seem to be providing only lip service or even missing from the scene when they are needed the most. When one talks to victims one realizes that bodies such as the One Stop Centers (North and South), Goa State Commission for Women, Victim Assistance Units,  Childrens Commission of Goa, etc;  grossly fail to reach out to the vulnerable and the victims, laments   SANGEETA NAIK. Cases of atrocities on women which come to limelight time and again and more importantly the reaction of the public to these cases makes one wonder. Is the modernity that we claim to have imbibed as an advanced civilization a mere eyewash? Just beneath this thin crust of modernity and civilizedness, are we still a group with a collective irrational, crude and cruel medieval mindset? With the exception of a few a...

  SPOTLIGHT Composting Movement Alka Damle can rightly be termed as a social reformer. A former Maths teacher living in Mormugao, she is known for creating awareness among the general public for over a decade now. Leading by example, she has been personally composting her own domestic waste, besides running active campaigns, thus trying to educate others on the importance of segregation and handling domestic waste. She speaks to EVESCAPE about a recently launched waste composting initiative and the role citizens need to play. Excerpts... The Initiative We all know that 70 percent of the  garbage dumped across the state, can be recycled by the citizens themselves who generate the same. We all can easily give back to the mother earth what we get from her by composting our waste. This very thought made a well  known experienced young environmentalist, Abhinav Apte from Ponda, Goa to take up this challenge. For this he came up with an idea of having a group ‘comepost ville’ ....

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...