As the renewable energy sector continues to grow and evolve, it will need to be increasingly mindful of the need to ensure that adverse impacts on the environment, communities and human rights do not arise from its value chain and operations.
Learn more about Our Work in India.
Shipra Deo was interviewed for an article about why national datasets in India differ on women’s land rights, and ideas for how to fix this.
In Jharkhand, eastern India, women are not entitled to own land and accusations of witchcraft are wielded against them to silence their claims to land.
On International Women’s Day, Shipra Deo explains that when it comes to land ownership, India’s culture & practices have always been discriminatory to women. But, women in tribal society are doubly disadvantaged—first as women & second as tribal women.
Landesa’s Shipra Deo examines how rituals and customs in India uphold patriarchal norms that systematically deprive women and girls of joys in life.
The ideal of a married woman decorated with sindoor, sakha, and bichiya is romanticized through legend and folklore; steeped in this culture, women themselves see value in these rituals. Millions of women in India do not even imagine that these discriminatory and patriarchal rituals are not supernaturally ordained and blind them to the reality that the revered status given to suhagins causes untold suffering to any woman (widow) who does not fit the ideal.
असलीभारत (Real India) published an article by Manisha Ahlawat about the gender gap in land ownership in India, and how land ownership is tied to social and economic power.
Learn more about Sudipta Biswas, Landesa Program Manager based in our Kolkata, India office.
Thomson Reuters Foundation published an op-ed by Shipra Deo, Landesa’s Director of Women’s Land Rights in India, about how women’s names are often used to maintain the stronghold of patriarchy in rural India.
On International Day of Rural Women, Shipra Deo shares stories from her work in rural India about the power of names — how they contribute to a person’s identity, affect the right to vote, and even uphold patriarchy.