Niches

In the June edition of ‘Staying Alive’, a survivor recounts how a lawyer told her the PWDVA offers no remedy without physical abuse, and why twenty years after the Act recognised emotional and economic violence, courts still treat a bruise as the only proof that counts.

Trans and disability rights movements confront common challenges when it comes to the Indian state’s unequal treatment of marginalised bodies in its nationalist project, the judiciary’s liberal legalism, and the emphasis on a Swadeshi jurisprudence. Our Pride Month special explores the possibility of a solidarity of counter-politics.

In its 298 page judgment late last month, the Court formulated safeguards against criminalisation of survivors under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act, while providing a detailed plan for their medical and legal assistance and reintegration into society.

In the May edition of ‘Staying Alive’, Hasina Khan, of the Bebaak Collective, traces how the PWDVA became a crucial tool for Muslim women navigating divorce threats, for young adults facing family control, and why its steady erosion by State neglect and hostile legislation demands urgent attention.

When the National Green Tribunal asked IPL stadiums to justify their use of groundwater, it reopened a decade-old contest between water as a human right and water as an economic commodity, one that India’s archaic groundwater laws are ill-equipped to resolve.

The Court recognised the petitioner's identity as male while holding that his biological status as a woman, until his reproductive organs are removed, entitled him to cryopreserve his oocytes under the ART Act, exposing a significant gap in India’s reproductive rights framework for transgender persons.

A recent approval by the top Court for medical termination of a 15-year old girl’s pregnancy is the latest addition to a case-by-case jurisprudence pushing for greater reproductive autonomy. But without access to courts, abortion remains a mounting challenge for women tangled in the MTP Act’s legal bottlenecks.

Petitioners raised concerns that the Transgender Amendment Act 2026 nullifies the NALSA judgment without removing its constitutional basis, criminalises ongoing gender-affirming therapy, and strips individuals of the right to self-identify