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India gets its first radio taxi services to be chauffeured by the LGBT community in Mumbai. It is expected to start functioning by 2017.
India’s first radio taxi service for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community was introduced in Mumbai on January 20. This marked another achievement for the LGBT community in India. Wings Travels and Humsafar Trust initiated this program that will have people from this community ply taxis in the city. According to this program, volunteers will apply for driving license and meanwhile, undergo customer etiquette training.
Mr Kharat, founder-director of Wings Travels and Management (India), said Wings Travels currently operates approximately 5,500 radio taxis in nine cities including Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, and Chandigarh. “We want them to be eventual entrepreneurs and own these vehicles. We want to ensure that the LGBT community in India enjoys the same rights and livelihood opportunities in India as their counterparts in the West,” he said to the media. He also added that while the first five volunteers are trained, they will continue to enroll people from the LGBT community across the country.
India is one of the very few countries in the world that recognizes Hijras as a gender separate from men or women. Though same-sex marriages are not legal in India, the country has had progressed in many such cases lately. The Tamil Nadu state in India was the first state to introduce a transgender welfare policy, according to which, transgender people can access free Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) in the Government Hospital; free housing program; various citizenship documents. Tamil Nadu also has a Transgender Welfare Board.
In November 2015, the Madras high court has directed Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board (TNUSRB) to appoint a transgender, K Prithika Yashini, as sub-inspector of police saying she is entitled to get the job. In the same year, India’s first transgender college principal Manobi Bandopadhyay was appointed in West Bengal in June. These instances has made the community, often separated from the general public, feel secure in their own homeland.
“Her (Manobi Bandopadhyay) appointment will empower and inspire others from the community. It also establishes that everybody, irrespective of their gender, is equal before the law,” said Vice-Chancellor Rattan Lal Hangloo, Kalyani University. These major steps taken by the government has taken not just the community a step forward, but has also changed the perceptive that people had against the LGBT community. It has also encouraged many from the community to come forward and make a mark in the society, and to earn a happy living.
Cover image via Hindu
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I huffed, puffed and panted up the hill, taking many rest breaks along the way. My calf muscles pained, my heart protested, and my breathing became heavy at one stage.
“Let’s turn back,” my husband remarked. We stood at the foot of Shravanbelagola – one of the most revered Jain pilgrimage centres. “We will not climb the hill,” he continued.
My husband and I were vacationing in Karnataka. It was the month of May, and even at the early hour of 8 am in the morning, the sun scorched our backs. After visiting Bangalore and Mysore, we had made a planned stop at this holy site in the Southern part of the state en route to Hosur. Even while planning our vacation, my husband was very excited at the prospect of visiting this place and the 18 m high statue of Lord Gometeshwara, considered one of the world’s tallest free-standing monolithic statues.
What we hadn’t bargained for was there would be 1001 granite steps that needed to be climbed to have a close-up view of this colossal magic three thousand feet above sea level on a hilltop. It would be an understatement to term it as an arduous climb.
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I was in the penultimate semester of my two-year MBA at IIM Indore. Amid lectures, libraries, badminton, extracurriculars, and placements, I somehow managed to discover my future life partner there. His parents had arrived in Indore from Lucknow to meet his choice and deliberate about blessing the marriage.
‘Yes, of course,’ I replied without blinking, trying to gauge her reaction.
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