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Women have been writing and getting published in India for a very long time. Even when it was considered dangerous and self-indulgent for women to read and write. There exist records of poems written by Buddhist nuns in India in the 6th Century BCE. There has also been a strong link between writing and activism. The gamut of women's writing in India is rich and diverse finding expression in the numerous languages of the subcontinent.
KALI FOR WOMEN
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However it was not until 1984 that women writers could turn to a publishing house which was women run and women focused. Not until Kali for Women was started by Ritu Menon and Urvashi Butalia.
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KALI FOR WOMEN
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SAKHI
I am going to tell you about a book on India (written by an Indian woman) and a group located in Delhi which not many in India will know about. Before I say anything more, let me warn you that this is a profoundly destructive book. It might destroy some myths you dearly cling on to.
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SAKHI
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Well, it did tear some of my myths into pieces. For example, I always thought that sexuality is not an issue which needed urgent attention by Indian Feminists. Giti Thadani in Sakhiyani, Lesbian Desire in Ancient and Modern India (Cassell,1996) argues that my kind of reasoning probably has a fair amount of fear and hypocrisy in it.
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STREELEKHA
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The publication activities of Vimochana include bringing out magazines and brochures on women's issues. Streelekha which was started some years after Vimochana remains the only women's bookstore in the city. It is a place much cherished by everyone interested in women's writing and Women's Studies. It also doubles as a meeting place for women.
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STREELEKHA
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Give peace a chance.
Kalpana Sharma and Ayesha Khan, Fellows at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in Chicago, U. S., expressed "...the shock, bewilderment and anxiety that echoed around the world,
and in our countries, when India - and later Pakistan - conducted nuclear
tests."
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