The Suno India Show

Almost 75% of Indian farmers are women and they produce up to 80% of India’s food, according to British non profit group Oxfam. But one-third of this vast number are unpaid laborers working on family farms. Women own just 12.8% of the country’s land. Without land, women are not officially recognised as farmers. This proved to be an immense problem in the pandemic where they missed out on government relief schemes. Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch or MAKAAM released a study of the challenges faced by women farmers in the context of COVID-19, ‘Long road to recovery.’ On this episode of The Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to MAKAAM’s researchers Gargie Mangulkar, Manavi Das and Roshan Rathod about the needs of women farmers today. They explore how the already vulnerable state of women farmers in India has been worsened by the pandemic. Show notes: Pioneering women farmers in India | BBC HindiA Female Farmer Describing Women’s Plight in Agriculture | Centre for Civil SocietyFinance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on PM Garib Kalyan YojanaMAKAAM Case story: Tiya Zhabarkha Bhosle See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

A recent global study conducted by researchers Deepak Malghan and Hema Swaminathan titled “Global trends in intra-house gender inequality” in 45 countries. They found that there is no single nation where wives earn as much as their husbands, even when both are employed. The study covers the time period of four decades, between 1973 and 2016 with a sample size of 2.85 million households across 45 countries. According to the study, the intra-household gender inequality has declined by 20%. To understand more about the study, income inequality and the differences in engagement in the labor market amongst spouses, Kunika Balhotra spoke with Hema Swaminathan, one of the authors of the study.  Hema is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Her broad interests are in the areas of poverty and inequality using a gender perspective.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

Firecracker bans help cities breathe easy, but it’s not the case for vulnerable communities dependent on the industry. As politicians play it safe and do not want to rock the boat and develop a transition plan, workers and small business owners are left to bear the brunt of clampdowns on fireworks imposed by State governments and local administrations.  In this episode of the Suno India show, Hariprasad Radhakrishnan travels to Sivakasi, the fireworks manufacturing hub of India and speaks with labourers and factory owners grappling with the lack of demand for fireworks.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

A break from schools due to Covid-19 serves as a blessing in disguise for Irula tribal children who get to learn traditional ways of life from their elders through village elder programmes. For this episode of The Suno India Show, Independent Journalist, Arathi Menon, travelled to the Nilgiris to see how in the absence of schools for long periods of time during Covid-19, tribal elders are imparting traditional knowledge to the children. The elders take the children to the forest and teach them about medicinal plants, traditional games and much more. See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

Project 39A’s report Deathworthy explores the impact of the death penalty on the mental health of those receiving it and why many death row convicts have a fragile mental state to begin with. On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Maitreyi Misra, lead author of the report and founding member of Project 39A at the National Law University. This episode also includes the inputs of Dr Pratima Murthy, Director of NIMHANS, and Dr Sanjeev Jain, Professor of Psychiatry at NIMHANS, who spoke at the report’s release event.  We trace how childhood trauma and mental illness can culminate into a death sentence later in life. How our legal system fails to detect mental illnesses and disabilities of convicts, and how our prisons fail to cater to the mental health of death row inmates.  Show notes: Detailed Analysis of Section 84 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 Section 30 in The Prisoners Act, 1900 328, 329, 330 CRPC |Procedure in case of accused being lunatic SK Nair vs State Of Punjab on 5 November, 1996 State Of Orissa vs Kalia @ Debabrata Maharana on 19 February, 2008 India joins nations which don’t execute mentally ill convicts See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

Imagine you are accused in a murder case. And the courts acquit you. But now for the rest of your life, every time someone Googles your name, they see that there is a chance you murdered someone. Or maybe you are a celebrity who drove while drunk and you paid your fine and did your time. But now every time you do a new project, entertainment news sites remind everyone about that time you drove drunk. Or maybe you are a victim of sexual abuse whose nude photos were uploaded online. Can it be scrubbed clean? Here comes the Right To Be Forgotten. On this episode of the Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee explores the Right To Be Forgotten, what it means and what are the cases in which it might be justified. She speaks with legal researcher and activist Dr Usha Ramanathan and celebrity Ashutosh Kaushik’s lawyer Ishanee Sharma. Additional reading: Brut India: Ashutosh Kaushik Wants His Past To Be ErasedThe Nerdwriter explains original European caseThe Daily Guardian: History of Right to be Forgotten in India {Name Redacted} vs The Registrar General on 23 January, 2017 RTBF case of actress whose nude audition tapes were uploaded onlineSee sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

The Centre submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court last week, saying no to conducting a caste census. It was in response to a writ petition by the Maharashtra government to collect OBC data in the state while conducting census 2021. On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee explores the history of the caste census, how it began, why it stopped, and why demands for it are growing.  She speaks to political scientist and TISS professor Ashwani Kumar, president of All India OBC Students Association Gowd Kiran Kumar, and senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research D. Shyam Babu.To hear them explain the history of reservation in our previous episode, please listen to: OBC Bill: A history of reservation and how we got here. Additional reading: Centre’s Affidavit to Supreme Court on Caste CensusHow ‘Shudra’ And OBC Categories Differ? The importance of caste census and its political implications See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

Despite a relatively good crop of saffron last year, overall saffron production in Kashmir has been on a decline for years now. Unpredictable rainfall and dry weather due to climate change have played havoc with the production of saffron in Kashmir. The Valley may lose one of its most precious spices for which it is known across the world. Cultivated and harvested in Pampore township of south Kashmir, more than 30,000 families are associated with saffron farming. Through the National Saffron Mission, the government introduced the Sprinkle irrigation technique a few years ago but the pumps installed could not last long. High-grade Kashmiri saffron has been also hit by adulteration & currently a less expensive Iranian variety is also sold in the valley.  In this podcast, journalist Irfan Amin Malik reports from Pampore town in Kashmir valley on dwindling saffron production.  Additional reading: India International Kashmir Saffron Trading Centre (IIKSTC)Government PPT on the decline in saffron productionKashmir turning saffron! Kesar spice yield at a 10-year high in ValleyNational Saffron MissionSee sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

127th Constitution Amendment Bill 2021 aka the OBC Bill was unanimously passed by the Parliament, a remarkable feat in an otherwise difficult session. It has once again brought up debates about reservation. But to understand our present, we must know our past. India has had reservation since the 1800s. In fact, experts say that our reservation policy influenced the United States’s better known Affirmative Action. In this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to political scientist and TISS professor Ashwani Kumar, president of All India OBC Students Association Gowd Kiran Kumar, and senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research D. Shyam Babu. They explore the history of reservation in India and how the current policy came to be. Moments in a History of ReservationsSee sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.

In Gujarat’s Amreli town, people working with COVID-19 patients, and those working in crematoriums or graveyards do not believe the minuscule official count of COVID-19 deaths- a mere 102.  The Reporters’ Collective analysed municipality death registers from 68 of 170 Gujarat towns. The data shows that in just April 2021 the number of excess deaths is higher than the state’s official death toll since the pandemic first began.  Shreegireesh Jalihal and Tapasya, journalists with The Reporters’ Collective speak to experts to figure out what the data means and how authorities could have possibly fudged Covid data. The episode explains why we urgently need numbers of all-cause mortality from government authorities to analyse the possible extent of Covid-19 deaths since 2020.  Beyond numbers, locals from Amreli recount the horrors they faced at the peak of the pandemic’s second wave.  Show notes: COVID-19 Tracker | GujaratThree New Estimates of India’s All-Cause Excess Mortality during the COVID-19 PandemicExcess mortality in India from June 2020 to June 2021 during the COVID pandemic: death registration, health facility deaths, and survey dataSee sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.