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Caste is both a historical truth of the Indian subcontinent, and a reality of modern-day India. Some of us are still unaware of the extent to which caste remains an ordering principle in our society today. Caste is present in a massive way in most of India and caste-based discrimination and violence takes place across the nation. In metropolitan cities too, caste has its ugly presence, even if not in obvious ways.

If we want to beat caste, we need to understand it. But first: we'll have to concede that it is a problem.

Integral to understanding caste is this Hindu scripture, which has shaped the way the religion has been practised in India. While the Vedas are more philosophical, the Laws of Manu detail how Hindu society must function and the traditions and rituals the people must abide by. It shows how deeply-rooted caste is in Hinduism that this fundamental text details the "number of paces (steps)" a person from a certain "unapproachable" caste must keep between themselves and a Brahmin, and the precise economic, social and physical punishments for any transgression of these mandates. This disturbing passage is a direct quote:

"If a shudra mentions the name and class of a twice-born contumely [i.e. without proper respect], an iron nail, ten figures long, shall be thrust into his mouth."

A major misunderstanding is that there are only four castes: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. These are in fact the Varnas, which are considered 'supercastes'. However, castes are often regional, and divided on the basis of not just profession. Profession is a minor part of the division that is mainly hereditary, based on different traditions and social status, and on degrees of untouchability. And the "untouchable" castes: the main victims of this system of oppression, are not even mentioned in the Vedas. The Dalits, or Scheduled Castes as the government recognises them, form a fifth varna kept out of the system.

Freedom fighter and great thinker B. R. Ambedkar, in his Annhilation of Caste, made a number of groundbreaking claims - the most controversial of which is that Hinduism itself has no meaning without caste. He called Hinduism a "collection of castes" that came to be defined as a religion and a culture only when Islamic culture came to India on the backs of foreign invaders. This idea was so radical that progressive intellectuals of the time banned the book.

But to think caste is restricted to Hindus is an even bigger folly. Ambedkar, when he converted to Buddhism, along with thousands of Dalit followers near the end of his life, actually approached world's two biggest religions first: Islam and Christianity . He was told his followers would not receive equal treatment in either of their religions: because in the Indian subcontinent, there are castes among Muslims and Christians as well. So the Dalit would have become Dalit-Christians or Dalit-Muslims. Untouchability and caste are cultural artifacts and social realities that have superceded religion.

But religion remains a justification and explanation for the atrocities of caste. The specific trap that caste locks one in is enforced by the Hindu idea of karma, which states that what you have done in your past life is responsible for your fate today, and your actions in this life will affect your birth in the next. If you're born as Dalit or Shudra, it is believed it's because of crimes in your previous life. And if you rebel or misbehave now, you'll be born in a lower caste in your next life.

The Mandal Commission Report in 1979 opened the eyes of the nation to how alive caste still was. By finding out the socioeconomic status of different castes, it uncovered startling evidence. Upper caste still held economic and social power, controlling the media and many political parties. An overlap was found between caste status and economic status, and certain occupations, like sweeping, were still the domain of the lower caste. Not much has changed since 1979.

Since the seventies - but mainly in the last three decades - Dalit autobiographies have become a big way for the world to know the atrocities perpetrated by the caste system, from the perspective of the worst victims. The most disturbing things about accounts like Baluta by Daya Pawar, is that discrimination is part of their normal everyday existence. It is not a one-off instance of honour killing but has permeated into everyday lives, like being made to sit separately at school. Food cooked by Dalits is not eaten by upper caste persons. They are supposed to take water from a separate well; they live in a separate enclave, a ghetto within the village.

The National Crime Bureau's official government statistics for 2012 tell us that every 16 minutes, a non-Dalit commits a crime on a Dalit. 1574 Dalit women were raped and 671 Dalits murdered in 2012. In Arundhati Roy's eye-opening essay The Doctor and The Saint, she cites another 2009 report on untouchability in Gujarat, where -

most villages forbade inter-caste marriage, Dalits touching utensils belonging to other villagers, Dalit priests participating in religious ceremonies taking place in non-Dalit areas, and Dalit panchayat leaders having tea in special 'Dalit' cups or not drink at all.

Even today, in a village in Madhya Pradesh girls born of the Devadasi (meaning those who serve God) caste are forced at the age of 12 to renounce everything and dedicate themselves to the temple. This means life-long enforced prostitution, wherein any man from an upper caste, as he chooses to, can have intercourse with her every night.

Here's The Guardian article and Ritesh Sharma's documentary The Holy Wives, if you can handle it.

More dangerous is subversive untouchability: which remains in households that have maids or servants or even drivers. The insistence on them drinking from different glasses, not sitting at the dining table with the "family", and having separate utensils are all practices, unfortunately, unique to India.

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is the caste system still there in india

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Caste is both a historical truth of the Indian subcontinent, and a reality of modern-day India. Some of us are still unaware of the extent to which caste remains an ordering principle in our society today. Caste is present in a massive way in most of India and caste-based discrimination and violence takes place across the nation.

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Part I - Untouchability & Casteism (Castes) Still EXISTS even Today in India- 2019.Must Watch It

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In an amateur video, four frightened men, stripped to the waist and tethered to a truck, are publicly flogged on a busy street in broad daylight.

Their assailants accused the four men of killing a cow - a sacred animal in India. Calling themselves protectors of the cow, they filmed themselves beating the foursome with iron rods and wooden sticks on July 11 - then posted their video on social media.

The attack in the Indian state of Gujarat, the home base of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ignited widespread revulsion - and even rumblings of a rebellion against India's Hindu caste system.

For millennia, caste has been the organizing principle of society in India. Determined by birth, caste draws distinctions between communities, determining one's profession, level of education and potential marriage partner. Privileges are reserved for the upper castes and denied the lower ones. The lowliest in this pecking order are the Dalits, once called "untouchables" as they are consigned by the Hindu hierarchy to the dirtiest occupations. It's a sizable community of some 200 million people. The word Dalit comes from a Hindi word meaning "oppressed, suppressed, downtrodden."

The four beating victims are Dalits.

One of them, Vashram Sarvaiya, curls up in his hospital bed and describes how he and the other three were brutalized while they performed a job no non-Dalit would do: Disposing of dead cows. Sarvaiya insists they harmed no living cow.

"We didn't kill the cow, we just removed the skin. It's our ancestral job. Our forefathers did it," he explains.

Authorities had determined that a lion killed the cow. But the vigilantes insisted the men had slaughtered the animal, and while beating them chanted: "Dig four graves."

In Gujarat, the video went viral, kindling a smoldering sense of injustice. Dalits are denied access to temples, public wells, even barbershops. Heena Zen, a young educated Dalit woman, even testified to continued "untouchability," the practice that forbids physical contact with another caste and that was outlawed 60 years ago.

Zen says that in her rural village in Gujarat: "When we go to buy milk, they won't even take the money from our hands, we must put it down, and then they pick it up. They don't let us in their homes, we can't sit with them, we can't eat with them."

In the area near the assault, men who skin cows for a living are now on strike, and families across Gujarat are re-evaluating their centuries-old occupation. Dilip Chavda's family has skinned cows for generations. He's not repulsed by the grisly work of cleaning carcasses.

Rather he's indignant that men like him "were beaten for doing their job." He says he's inspired to find a different line of work. He and his cousin, 20-year-old Pragnesh, represent a restless new generation that bristles at being treated as outcasts.

Pragnesh says: "We'll break this caste system where Dalits do all the dirty work. Let the owners of these dead cows clean the carcasses themselves. We're determined that our young generation moves ahead."

It's not the first time Dalits have asserted the right to be treated as equal citizens. Pragnesh invokes the name of B.R. Ambedkar, a prominent politician and Dalit reformer, who called for the abolition of caste a half a century ago. The fact that Gujarat is transforming anger into action is what's different in 2016.

With traditional skinners refusing to work, the disposal of cows risks a sanitation crisis in some areas. In the central Gujarati town of Limbdi, carcasses are being tossed untreated into open pits in the garbage dump. The stench is unbearable.

"It's the first time that Dalits aren't disposing of our dead animals," says Hasmukh Sheth, a trustee with a 150-year-old animal shelter where cow carcasseshave piled up. "They did it all by hand and needed no supervision. The municipality has no experience," he says.

Sheth adds that cow skinning is a billion dollar business, as everything on the cow - its hide, meat, even bones - is sold and consumed. The agents that buythe raw materials from the skinning Dalit families are typically from the higher castes.

Key sanitation jobs, like unclogging sewer drains and cleaning human excrement off the streets, also fall to Dalits. Dalit rights activist Jignesh Mevani argues that this occupational discrimination is ultimately holding India back.

"So we want to become a leading economic power but we want to continue with such obnoxious practices. Caste should be thrown into the dustbin of history. It is nothing more than the existence of feudalism," he says.

Mevani organized a rally and a march across the state in solidarity with the striking Dalits, starting on August 5 and ending on the 15th. At the opening rally, the small crowd assembled under the battle cry "Azadi" or "Freedom." "Freedom from caste-ism, freedom from social division, freedom from untouchability," they chanted.

Dalits are overwhelmingly poor and landless. One demand from the protesters: small parcels of property for community members in the name of equality.

At 78, Arjun Gohil is a Dalit who has lived through India's entire independence history. At the rally, the retired schoolteacher danced, exalting in a moment that he says is an "awakening" for a caste-free society.

Prime Minister Modi acknowledged this simmering revolt, telling the nation in his Independence Day address last Monday: "Economic progress alone does not make a strong nation, social justice is necessary."

Referencing the dispute regarding Dalits, Modi said: "Every citizen should fight against the differences in the society on the basis of caste and prevalent class differences."

But that's not yet happening in India. Jignesh Mevani reported trouble as marchers made their way to the town of Una, the site of the beating. Along the route, he says some members of higher castes hurled insults, while others assailed the marchers with sticks.

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The Caste Formerly Known As 'Untouchables' Demands A New Role In India

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The public beating of four men from the bottom rung of India's social hierarchy has led to calls for an end to the caste system.

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More than 10 million people in India's capital, Delhi, are without water after protesters sabotaged a key canal which supplies much of the city.

The army took control of the Munak canal after Jat community protesters, angry at caste job quotas, seized it.

Keshav Chandra, head of Delhi's water board, told the BBC it would take "three to four days" before normal supplies resumed to affected areas.

All Delhi's schools have been closed because of the water crisis.

Sixteen people have been killed and hundreds hurt in three days of riots.
At the scene: Defiant India protesters stand ground in Haryana Watch: What future for India's caste system?
Sixteen million people live in Delhi, and around three-fifths of the city's water is supplied by the canal, which runs through the neighbouring state of Haryana.

Mr Chandra said that prior warnings meant that people had managed to save water, and tankers had been despatched to affected areas of the city, but that this would not be enough to make up for the shortfall.

The army took control of parts of the canal on Monday morning, but repairs are expected to take time.

The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder, who is near Delhi's border with neighbouring Haryana state, said protesters who have set up road blocks are refusing to budge.

"We don't trust them. Let's get something in writing. Let them spell it out," one demonstrator who refused to be named told the BBC.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted that the army was "trying to assess in how much time water would reach Delhi and whether any damage had been done to the canal".

Protesters went on the rampage despite a curfew and the deployment of the army, which is reported to have opened fire on them in the districts of Rohtak and Jhajjar.

Why are the Jats angry?

The land-owning Jat community is relatively affluent and has traditionally been seen as upper caste.

They are mainly based in Haryana and seven other states in northern India.

Comprising 27% of the voters in Haryana and dominating a third of the 90 state assembly seats, they are a politically influential community. Seven of the 10 chief ministers in Haryana have been Jats.

The Jats are currently listed as upper caste but the demonstrators have been demanding inclusion in caste quotas for jobs and education opportunities that have been available to lower castes since 1991.

In March 2014 the Congress-led national government said it would re-categorise Jats as Other Backward Castes (OBC), opening the way to government job quotas.

But India's Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the Jats were not a backward community.

As jobs have dried up in the private sector and farming incomes have declined, the community has demanded the reinstatement of their backward caste status to enable them to secure government jobs.

Haryana state minister Ram Bilas Sharma said the situation was returning to normal, traffic had resumed on national highways and that railway lines between Delhi and the cities of Jaipur and Chandigarh had reopened.

Mr Sharma also confirmed that the government would introduce a bill on reservations and quotas for the Jat community in the next assembly session, although he did not say when that would be.

Meanwhile, India's federal government has said it will set up a top-level committee to look into the grievances of Jats.

The violence had earlier forced the closure of several key roads and national highways, and paralysed the railway system in northern India.

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More than 10 million people in India's capital, Delhi, are without water after protesters sabotaged a key canal which supplies much of the city. The army took control of the Munak canal after Jat community protesters, angry at caste job quotas, seized it.

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Explore Salman Rushdie's work at his official author website

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Salman Rushdie is the author of eleven novels: Grimus, Midnight's Children (which was awarded the Booker Prize in 1981), Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moor's Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, Shalimar the Clown and The Enchantress of Florence, and Luka and the Fire of Life.

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People have called her Braveheart, Fearless and India's Daughter, among other things, and sent up a billion prayers for a speedy recovery.

When the unidentified woman died in a Singapore hospital early on Saturday, the victim of a savage rape on a moving bus in the capital, Delhi, it was time again, many said, to ask: why does India treat its women so badly?

Female foetuses are aborted and baby girls killed after birth, leading to an appallingly skewed sex ratio. Many of those who survive face discrimination, prejudice, violence and neglect all their lives, as single or married women.

TrustLaw, a news service run by Thomson Reuters, has ranked India as the worst G20 country in which to be a woman. This in the country where the leader of the ruling party, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, at least three chief ministers, and a number of sports and business icons are women. It is also a country where a generation of newly empowered young women are going out to work in larger numbers than ever before.

But crimes against women are rising too.

With more than 24,000 reported cases in 2011, rape registered a 9.2% rise over the previous year. More than half (54.7%) of the victims were aged between 18 and 30. Most disturbingly, according to police records, the offenders were known to their victims in more than 94% of the cases. Neighbours accounted for a third of the offenders, while parents and other relatives were also involved. Delhi accounted for over 17% of the total number of rape cases in the country.

And it is not rape alone. Police records from 2011 show kidnappings and abductions of women were up 19.4%, women being killed in disputes over dowry payments by 2.7%, torture by 5.4%, molestation by 5.8% and trafficking by an alarming 122% over the previous year.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has estimated that more than 100m women are "missing" worldwide - women who would have been around had they received similar healthcare, medicine and nutrition as men.

New research by economists Siwan Anderson and Debraj Ray estimates that in India, more than 2m women are missing in a given year.

The economists found that roughly 12% of the missing women disappear at birth, 25% die in childhood, 18% at the reproductive ages, and 45% at older ages.

They found that women died more from "injuries" in a given year than while giving birth - injuries, they say, "appear to be indicator of violence against women".

Deaths from fire-related incidents, they say, is a major cause - each year more than 100,000 women are killed by fires in India. The researchers say many cases could be linked to demands over a dowry leading to women being set on fire. Research also found a large number of women died of heart diseases.

These findings point to life-long neglect of women in India. It also proves that a strong preference for sons over daughters - leading to sex selective abortions - is just part of the story.

Clearly, many Indian women face threats to life at every stage - violence, inadequate healthcare, inequality, neglect, bad diet, lack of attention to personal health and well-being.

Analysts say deep-rooted changes in social attitudes are needed to make India's women more accepted and secure. There is deeply entrenched patriarchy and widespread misogyny in vast swathes of the country, especially in the north. And the state has been found wanting in its protection of women.

Angry citizens believe that politicians, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, are being disingenuous when they promise to toughen laws and speed up the prosecution of rapists and perpetrators of crime against women.

How else, they ask, can political parties in the last five years have fielded candidates for state elections that included 27 candidates who declared they had been charged with rape?

How, they say, can politicians be believed when there are six elected state legislators who have charges of rape against them?

But the renewed protests in Delhi after the woman's death hold out some hope. Has her death come as an inflexion point in India's history, which will force the government to enact tougher laws and people to begin seriously thinking about the neglect of women?

It's early days yet, but one hopes these are the first stirrings of change.

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People have called her Braveheart, Fearless and India's Daughter, among other things, and sent up a billion prayers for a speedy recovery. When the unidentified woman died in a Singapore hospital early on Saturday, the victim of a savage rape on a moving bus in the capital, Delhi, it was time again, many said, to ask: why does India treat its women so badly?

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" It is impossible to think about the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It is impossible for a bird to fly on only one wing." - Swami Vivekananda

Women are not born, but made. What better than India to exemplify this statement by Simone de Beauvoir. With the whole world celebrating International Women's Day with great pomp and show, it would be only apt to analyse the position and space Indian women occupy today, and comparing it to the time 60 years ago when the country had just gained independence. With women participating in nationalist movements, to being pushed into the domestic household space, to their resurgence as super-women today, women in our country have seen it all.

There have been innumerable debates about gender in India over the years. Much of it includes women's positing in society, their education, health, economic position, gender equality etc. What one can conclude from such discussions is that women have always held a certain paradoxical position in our developing country.

While on one hand, India has seen an increased percentage of literacy among women, and women are now entering professional fields, the practices of female infanticide, poor health conditions and lack of education still persisting still continue. Even the patriarchal ideology of the home being a woman's 'real domain' and marriage being her ultimate destiny hasn't changed much. The matrimonial advertisements, demanding girls of the same caste, with fair skin and slim figure, or the much criticised fair and lovely ads, are indicators of the slow changing social mores. If one looks at the status of women then and now, one has to look at two sides of the coin; one side which is promising, and one side which is bleak.

When our country got its independence, the participation of women nationalists was widely acknowledged. When the Indian Constitution was formulated, it granted equal rights to women, considering them legal citizens of the country and as an equal to men in terms of freedom and opportunity. The sex ratio of women at this time was slightly better than what it is today, standing at 945 females per 1000 males. Yet the condition of women screamed a different reality.

They were relegated to the household, and made to submit to the male-dominated patriarchal society, as has always been prevalent in our country. Indian women, who fought as equals with men in the nationalist struggle, were not given that free public space anymore. They became homemakers, and were mainly meant to build a strong home to support their men who were to build the newly independent country. Women were reduced to being second class citizens. The national female literacy rate was an alarmingly low 8.6%. The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for girls was 24.8% at primary level and 4.6% at the upper primary level (in the 11-14 years age group). There existed insoluble social and cultural barriers to education of women and access to organised schooling.

A very few were allowed into the public space, which she was expected to manage on her own, while maintaining her domestic role as a homemaker. In spite of the Sharda Act which was passed in the 1950s to raise the marital age limit for girls, child marriage particularly in North India was quite prevalent though the average age at marriage for females was increased to 18. Sprawling inequalities persisted in their access to education, health care, physical and financial resources and opportunities in political, social and cultural spheres. It was almost unthinkable for women to have a choice or a say in matters of marriage, career or life. Rather she had no voice at all. The practice of dowry was as common as ever.

And since men were better educated than girls, the demands were even more. The Dowry Prohibition Act was finally passed in 1961, to protect women and promising severe punishment, but the conviction rate of crime against women was, and still is very low in India. Because of such inhuman practices which were normalised by our society, the birth of the girl child was considered inauspicious. In villages as well as cities, the girl child was killed either before birth or after it. Even till date, the practice continues. The United Nations Children's Fund, estimated that up to 50 million girls and women are 'missing' from India's population because of termination of the female foetus or high mortality of the girl child due to lack of proper care.

Though a number of constitutional amendments were made for women's social, economic and political benefits, yet they were never effective to bring a radical change in the situation. Women had only the role of a 'good wife' to play, and if a woman ventured out to work, she was seen as a bad woman, going against societal norms. Women were expected to cook food and eat only after the men, with whatever meager amount of food is left. This led to rampant malnutrition among women, and an extremely poor health status. Around 500 women were reported to die every day due to pregnancy related problems due to malnutrition, and getting married before 18. It was only by the 1960s, that a few educated women began to see themselves increasingly change from a mere guardian of home to a legitimate participant in the discourse of life. The country saw the first undercurrent of female discontent with the system.

With time, a lot has changed since those dark ages of the 1950s for the women. Though at some levels like dowry, crimes like rape, sexual harassment at office or public places, and molestation, eve-teasing, even after over sixty years of independence women are still exploited, which is the shameful side of our country. Yet one can't deny that the situation has improved since the earlier times. Women, who now represent 48.2% of the population, are getting access to education, and then employment. From 5.4 million girls enrolled at the primary level in 1950-51 to 61.1 million girls in 2004-05. At the upper primary level, the enrolment increased from 0.5 million girls to 22.7 million girls.

Dropout rates for girls have fallen by 16.5% between the year 2000 and 2005. Programs like 'Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan' and 'Saakshar Bharat Mission for Female Literacy' has helped increase the literacy rates from less than 10 percent to more than 50% today. The result of this is that India has world's largest number of professionally qualified women. In fact India has the largest population of working women in the world, and has more number of doctors, surgeons, scientists, professors than the United States.

Women in India slowly started recognising her true potential. She has started questioning the rules laid down for her by the society. As a result, she has started breaking barriers and earned a respectable position in the world. Today Indian women have excelled in each and every field from social work to visiting space station. There is no arena, which remains unconquered by Indian women. Whether it is politics, sports, entertainment, literature, technology everywhere, its women power all along.

Today names like Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Shobhaa De, Jhumpa Lahiri can put any other writer to shame. In the field of cinema, women like Rekha, Smita Patil, Shabana Aazmi and Vidya Balan and Konkona Sen are such names who don't play feminised roles, but have asserted themselves over this male-dominated realm. In the field of Politics, from Indira Gandhi to Shiela Dixit, Uma Bharti, Jayalalithaa, Vasundhra Raje and Mamata Banerjee today, women are making their presence felt.

Today, the modern woman is so deft and self-sufficient that she can be easily called a superwoman, juggling many fronts single-handedly. Women are now fiercely ambitious and are proving their metal not only on the home front, but also in their respective professions. Women in Indian are coming up in all spheres of life. They are joining the universities and colleges in large numbers. They are entering into all kinds of professions like engineering, medicine, politics, teaching, etc. A nation's progress and prosperity can be judged by the way it treats its women folk. There is a slow and steady awareness regarding giving the women their dues, and not mistreating them, seeing them as objects of possession. Despite progress, the very fact that women, along with being achievers, also are expected to fulfil their roles as wives or mothers, prioritising home against anything else.

This point of view hasn't changed much. There is still a large section of women who are uneducated, and married off before the age of 18. Families are required to supply a chaste daughter to the family of her future husband. Also very few women are actually employed in good-paying jobs, and hence parents don't see the point of spending money on girls' education. Statistics say that close to 245 million Indian women lack the basic capability to read and write, which is a large number. Only 13.9% women are employed in the urban sector, and 29% in the domestic and agriculture sector, where too a majority of women are exploited by the men. The sex ratio of India shows that the Indian society is still prejudiced against female, and a lot is yet to be achieved in this context.

The path towards total gender empowerment is full of potholes. Over the years, women have made great strides in many areas with notable progress in reducing some gender gaps. Yet realities such as 11,332 women and girls getting trafficked every year, and increased practice of dowry, rape and sexual harassment hit hard against all the development that has taken place. Thus, if on one hand women are climbing the ladder of success, on the other hand she is mutely suffering the violence afflicted on her by her own family members. As compared to the past, women in modern times have achieved a lot but in reality they have to still travel a long way. Women may have left the secured domains of their home, but a harsh, cruel, exploitative world awaits them, where women have to prove their talent against the world who see women as merely vassals of producing children. The Indian woman has to make her way through all the socialised prejudices against her, and the men yet have to allow and accept the women to be equal participants in the country's way forward.

Youth Ki Awaaz is an open platform where anybody can publish. This post does not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions.

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Here's How The Status Of Women Has Changed In India [Since 1950 Till Date]

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" It is impossible to think about the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It is impossible for a bird to fly on only one wing." - Swami Vivekananda Women are not born, but made. What better than India to exemplify this statement by Simone de Beauvoir.

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With the help of this post, we are sharing you the success stories of Indian entrepreneurs who successfully started with almost nothing. Success Stories of Entrepreneurs which will inspire you.

These stories hopefully will inspire you through your startup journey and will keep you motivated. (these are not in any specific order or based on specific criteria)

Below Mentioned are Indian Entrepreneurs who started with almost nothing in hand and yet were able to make multi-million companies.

CEO of (formerly AdventNet Inc.), the company behind the Zoho suite of online applications. He co-founded AdventNet in 1996, and has been CEO since 2000. AdventNet has transformed itself from a modest beginning as a softw are company serving network equipment vendors to a be an innovative online applications provider.

It has maintained growth and profitability, without needing outside capital. Prior to AdventNet, Sridhar worked as a wireless systems engineer at Qualcomm, Inc. where he was fortunate to work with some of the leading minds in wireless communications.

Sridhar Vembu's Zoho competes successfully around the world with some core products of Microsoft, Google and Salesforce.com. Vembu shuns outside capital, but if Zoho were to be valued, it might be well over $1 billion.

He grew up in a very modest middle-class family in Chennai. His father was a stenographer in the High Court. Neither his father nor his mother went to college.

He went to a Tamil-medium, government-aided school till Std 10, and then he did 11th and 12th in an English-medium government school.

He did well at school and he obtained his Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University.

Dr.Arokiaswamy Velumani

Thyrocare's Velumani: Owns no car, lives in a small quarter, but helms a Rs 1,320-crore company.

Velumani doesn't own a car. He makes do with a small living quarters above his large lab in Navi Mumbai, but still ends up sleeping in the lab most nights.

Born to a poor landless farmer in a nondescript and obscure village of Appanickenpatti Padur in Tamil Nadu, Arokiaswamy Velumani found himself at the bottom of the 'ten slices of the pyramid'.

Velumani was so poor that he sought government subsidy to go through school and college.

Today, he is the owner of the world's largest thyroid testing company, that boasts of 1,122 outlets across India, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Middle East!

He started his career as a shift chemist at Gemini Capsules, a small pharmaceutical company in Coimbatore, in 1979 and earned a measly sum of ₹150 every month. The curtains came down on the company three years later and Velumani found himself without a job.

After 14 years of servitude at BARC, Velumani put in his papers. He decided to channel his expertise in thryoid biochemistry to set up testing labs that detected thryoid disorders. With Rs. 1,00,000 from his provident fund, Velumani, at the age of 37, opened a shop in Byculla, South Mumbai.

Thyrocare is worth ₹3,377 crore ( on may 2016 ) and has made its debut on Indian bourses! Velumani owns a 64% stake in the company, which makes him worth ₹2,158 crore!

But it doesn't end there for Velumani and his team. Thyrocare is also working towards developing a subsidiary to focus on cancer screening through molecular imaging.

A mechanical engineer started in 1985, from a small room in his house with just 20,000 which he had saved from his job with IOCL.

His first invention was in the field of petroleum conservation instrument where he earned fame and half a dozen patents to his credit.

His turning Point came with the establishment of KENT RO SYSTEM in the year 1998, when he charted out on a new enterprise after jaundice gripped his son in a posh colony of South Delhi.

Knowing that jaundice is a water-borne disease, Gupta researched and analyzed all the available water purifier in the market.

He was dissatisfied with available options and decided to make a better quality purifier. After several trails, he made his own water purifier and became confident that is product is good enough to be marketed. "Coming from an engineering background, making my own water purifier was not difficult task; all I needed to do was export the components. - Mahesh Gupta

The experiment turned into success. And then I thought to bring it out in commercially in the market. I started from scratch with an investment of about 1 lac and four member team.

Today Kent has grown 40% market share in RO mineral and has turnover 580 crore and 2,500 employees.

Born in a small village at Rahimatpur in Maharashtra, Kailash Katkar worked his way to the top to be chairman and CEO of INR 200 Cr business. He is the man behind Quickheal technologies Pvt Ltd.

He started with a job at local radio and calculator repair shop and later went ahead in 1990 to start his own calculator repair business.

In 1993 he started a new venture, CAT computer services where around that time his younger brother Sanjay developed a basic model of antivirus software which helped in solving the biggest problem of computer maintenance at that time.

Later in 2007 it was renamed as Quick Heal Technologies. He achieved all this without any formal education.

P C Mustafa ( Coolie's Son who Set Up 100 Crore Company with just 25,000 )

This is the story of a man who failed in Class 6, but went on to join the Regional Engineering College (now the National Institute of Technology), Calicut and the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore.

This is the story of a man who decided to become an entrepreneur and employ people from rural India.

Today, fresh idli and dosa batter made by P C Mustafa's company ID Fresh reaches homes in Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mangaluru and even Dubai.

Today, we produce around 50,000 kg in our plant. The total investment must be around Rs 4 crore ( Rs 40 million) and our revenue is Rs 100 crore ( Rs 1 billion).

When we became a Rs 100 crore company in October 2015, we celebrated in grand scale. We have grown from producing 10 packets a day in 2005, with just my cousin managing the kitchen, to 50,000 packets a day with 1,100 employees in 10 years.
Full Story here
She started her career 30 years ago as an entrepreneur, selling eateries from a mobile cart on the Marina beach amidst all odds - battling a failed marriage, coping with her husband, a multiple addict, and taking care of two kids.

Today, she has overcome the hurdles and owns a chain of restaurants.

" I started my business with just two people. Now, there are 200 people working for me in my restaurants. My lifestyle has changed too. From travelling in a cycle rickshaw, I moved to auto rickshaws and now I have my own car. From 50 paise a day, my revenue has gone up to Rs 2 lakh a day.

The 'Ficci entrepreneur of the year' award is the culmination of all the hard work I have put in over the last 30 years. It came as a surprise as this is the first time I have received an award.

Till now, I had no time to think of what I was doing. But the award made me look back and relive the days that passed by. Now, my ambition is to build my Sandeepha brand."

Advice to young entrepreneurs
Do not ever compromise on quality. Never lose your self-confidence. Believe in yourself and the product you are making. Third, always stick to what you know. When you employ people, you should know what you ask them to do.

[ Source Quora ]

India's largest private sector company. Created an equity cult in the Indian capital market. Reliance is the first Indian company to feature in Forbes 500 list
Dhirubhai Ambani was the most enterprising Indian entrepreneur. His life journey is reminiscent of the rags to riches story. He is remembered as the one who rewrote Indian corporate history and built a truly global corporate group.

Dhirubhai Ambani alias Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani was born on December 28, 1932, at Chorwad, Gujarat, into a Modh family. His father was a school teacher. Dhirubhai Ambani started his entrepreneurial career by selling "bhajias" to pilgrims in Mount Girnar over the weekends.

After doing his matriculation at the age of 16, Dhirubhai moved to Aden, Yemen. He worked there as a gas-station attendant, and as a clerk in an oil company. He returned to India in 1958 with Rs 50,000 and set up a textile trading company.

In 1992, Reliance became the first Indian company to raise money in global markets, its high credit-taking in international markets limited only by India's sovereign rating. Reliance also became the first Indian company to feature in Forbes 500 list.

Dhirubhai Ambani was named the Indian Entrepreneur of the 20th Century by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). A poll conducted by The Times of India in 2000 voted him "greatest creator of wealth in the century".

Dhirubhai Ambani died on July 6, 2002, at Mumbai.

Karsanbhai Patel - Man behind NIRMA

The 'Nirma' success story of how an Indian Entrepreneur took on the big MNCs and rewrote the rules of business :

It was in 1969 that Dr. Karsanbhai Patel started Nirma and went on to create a whole new segment in the Indian domestic detergent market.

During that time the domestic detergent market only had the premium segment and there were very few companies , mainly the MNCs, which were into this business.

Karsanbhai Patel used to make detergent powder in the backyard of his house in Ahmedabad and then carry out door to door selling of his hand made product.

He gave a money back guarantee with every pack that was sold. Karsanbhai Patel managed to offer his detergent powder for Rs. 3 per kg when the cheapest detergent at that time was Rs.13 per kg and so he was able to successfully target the middle and lower middle income segment.

Sabki Pasand Nirma!

Nirma became a huge success and all this was a result of Karsanbhai Patel's entrepreneurial skills.
The best case of - Give your consumer what he wants, when he wants, where he wants and at the price he wants, selling will be done quite automatically. This is the marketing 'mantra' of Nirma.
The company that was started in 1969 with just one man who used to deliver his product from one house to the other,today employs around 14 thousand people and has a turnover of more than $ 500 million.

In 2004 Nirma's annual sales were as high as 800000 tonnes.According to Forbes in 2005 Karsanbhai Patel's net worth was $640 million and it's going to touch the $1000 million mark soon.

Prem Ganapathy - The Dosawala

Prem Ganapathy, was stranded at the bandra station,when the person accompanying him left him and ran away. Prem had no local acquaintances or knowledge of the language.

Out of pity, a fellow Tamilian guided him to a temple and appealed worshipers to contribute money for his return ticket to Chennai.

Prem refused to go back and decided to work in Mumbai and started cleaning utensils in a restaurant. He appealed to his owner, to let him become a waiter as he was class 10 pass. The owner refused, because of regional politics and Prem bided his time till a neighbor hood dosa restaurant opened and offered him a job from a dishwasher to a tea boy.

Prem became a huge hit with the customers because of his excellent customer service, initiatives and relationship and brought business Rs. 1000 daily which was almost 3 times as compared to other tea boys. The life was good.

A customer made him an offer. He was planning to open a tea shop in Vashi in Mumbai. He wanted Prem to be his 50 - 50 partner where the owner would invest the money while Prem would run the shop. The shop started doing brisk business when the owner became greedy.

It hurt him to share 50 % of the profit with Prem and he threw Prem out replacing him with an employee.

Prem was made of a different material and he was never going to be defeated. He took a small loan from his uncle and with his brother, opened his own tea stall. Unfortunately the neighbourhood residents objected. He then started a hand cart but that also did not work out.

Read Also: How to become an Entrepreneur in India

He found a spot and set up a south Indian stall. He did not know a thing about dosas and idli but learnt by observation, trial and error. The dosa stall was a huge hit and flourished during the 5 years from 1992-1997. But why was the tiny dosa stall was was so successful in spite of competition from ubiquitous eateries prevalent in Mumbai. According to Prem it was its hygiene, proper appearances of the waiters and fresh ingredients which stood out as a difference.

He saved a couple of lakhs of Rupees and instead of heading home he took the biggest risk of his life and opened a new shop near Vashi station and named it as Dosa Plaza. His Chinese plaza next to the Dosa Plaza flopped miserably and was shut down in 3 months.

Undaunted, Prem realized some lessons from it. He applied those lessons in making Chinese cuisine in his dosas which worked very well.

He got passionate and invented a variety of dosas with Chinese style like American Chopsuey, Schezwan Dosa, Paneer chilly, Spring roll dosa etc. The 108 types of Dosas in his menu gets him a lot of publicity.
A chance encounter with a customer who was part of the team setting up a food court in a mall in New Bombay advised him to take a stall at the food court and again Prem was ready and willing to grow and expand. His vision was to grow by better offerings and better customer service. He also went to ad agencies to create the brand identity including the logo, brands, menu card, waiters dress etc.

He started getting a lot of offers for franchising and had to find out the meaning of franchising and its modus operandi. Dosa Plaza currently has 26 outlets and 5 of them are company owned. It has 150 employees and a turnover of 5 crore. All the branches are connected and networked and there are training managers and proper manuals to maintain standard and uniform product and services.
Merit is the only criteria; all the employees regardless of the caste or region are treated equally. They are loyal and have grown with the company. The original team of cooks which was the part of the first Dosa venture is still with Prem. Currently he is also getting enquiries from US and Europe for franchisees.
EThis has been proved by Mrs. Jyothi Reddy with her spectacular travel from a field laborer to the CEO of an organization in the US. This is the true story of Ms. Jyothi Reddy who now owns a software company in the United States of America and who has a great vision to change many lives of women in rural India.

Jyothi was born in 1970 and she was the youngest among the five girl children in a poor family in India. Due to her family's financial situation, she was admitted into a welfare orphanage. To get the admission, she had to become a motherless child.

It was a heart breaking situation for Jyothi as she could not see her mother during the days when she was in the orphanage. There was nobody to share her happiness and sorrow.

Instead of getting down with the situation, Jyothi developed a strong will to make her future bright. She promised herself to work towards creating a better life for her.

She learned the way of dealing with life in a hard and practical manner. The hardship taught her the value of life and made her think beyond the situation.
Read Full story here
Ramesh Babu, the barber who owns a Rolls Royce

Bangalore resident Ramesh Babu, is a star in his own league who runs the business of cutting and styling hair. He is an ordinary businessman, with an extraordinary wealth. He is a billionaire and owns a rent-a-car fleet of 67 alternative cars.

At the moment his fleet consists of around 200 cars, vans and mini-buses, including imported vehicles-a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, Mercedes C, E and S class and BMW 5, 6 and 7 series. He has a fleet of imported Mercedes vans and Toyota mini-buses.

"This is more of a passion," he says. As for being a barber, "I will continue to be one as long as my hands are healthy."

Amazingly, Ramesh charges Rs 75000 a day for the Rolls and his usual clients are corporate bigwigs and visiting Bollywood and Tollywood stars.

Godse hails from a poor family of a farmer based out of Akole village from Ahmednagar district, where he recalls his father earning a meager monthly wage of Rs. 400
He worked hard and did graduation and later MBA course in 1994-96 from Pune University.

Nitin laid the foundation of Excel Gas and Equipments Pvt Ltd on 31December, 1999.

Ranked as one of the top 5 companies, the company specialises in on-site piping and tubing installations, subcontracting, supplying a variety of onsite services like pipe and tube supply and fitting, on-site manual welding, orbital welding, helium leak check, instruments supply and erection and such others.

The turnover of the company is touching Rs 50 crores and the company has 200 employees on its own payroll.

Excel Gas plans to install 20 gas plants in 4-5 cities by 2016-17 with an investment of Rs 100 crores.
Hope you find this post about " successful Indian entrepreneurs who started with nothing and then made an empire" useful and inspiring. if you have a story like this please share with us via comments.

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50+ Indian Entrepreneur Success Stories - rags to riches

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With the help of this post, we are sharing you the success stories of Indian entrepreneurs who successfully started with almost nothing. Success Stories of Entrepreneurs which will inspire you. These stories hopefully will inspire you through your startup journey and will keep you motivated.

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This book, based on extensive, original research, details the changing lives of youth living in slum communities (bustees) in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). Using young people's own photos, art and narratives, the book explores how Muslim girls and young women are contributing to, and impacted by, changing youth culture in India.

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Bride burning is a form of domestic violence practiced in countries located on or around the Indian subcontinent. A category of dowry death, bride-burning occurs when a young woman is murdered by her husband or his family for her family's refusal to pay additional dowry. The wife is typically doused with kerosene, gasoline, or other flammable liquid, and set alight, leading to death by fire. Kerosene is often used as the cooking fuel for dangerous small petrol stoves, so it allows the claim that the crime was an accident. It is most common in India and has been a major problem there since at least 1993.

This crime has been treated as culpable homicide and, if proven, is usually accordingly punished by up to lifelong imprisonment or death. Bride burning has been recognized as an important problem in India, accounting for around 2,500 deaths per year in the country. In 1995, Time Magazine reported that dowry deaths in India increased from around 400 a year in the early 1980s to around 5,800 a year by the middle of the 1990s. A year later, CNN ran a story saying that every year police receive more than 2,500 reports of bride burning. According to Indian National Crime Record Bureau, there were 1,948 convictions and 3,876 acquittals in dowry death cases in 2008.

A dowry death is the death of a young woman in South Asian countries, primarily India, who is murdered or driven to suicide by her husband. This results from the husband continually attempting to extract more dowry from the bride or her family. Bride burning is just one form of dowry death. Others include acid throwing and Eve teasing. Because dowry typically depends on class or socioeconomic status, women are often subjected to the dowry pressures of their future husband or his relatives.

There are at least four perspectives on why bride burning came to be and how its existence has prevailed in South Asian nations, as detailed by Avnita Lakhani in her report on bride burning titled "The Elephant in the Room Is Out of Control". These theories describe practices that contributed to the rise of dowry as a whole, thus ultimately contributing to bride burning.

One of the more culturally-founded theories suggests that in a highly patriarchal society such as India, a woman's role is defined from before she is born, which ultimately places her as lesser than men. Because she is seen as a burden and an "extra mouth to feed", her status as an economic liability promotes the idea that men, who are considered physical assets, can treat women as subservient. Once a woman marries, she is bound to her husband and his will because "society mandates obedience to her husband".

Lakhani also suggests that historically speaking, the dowry system may have been conceived as a way to distinguish Muslim from Hindu culture, creating a further divide within castes. A higher dowry would indicate a higher status and distinction from Islam, thus providing an incentive to demand a larger dowry.

According to an estimate from 2011, between 4,000 and 25,000 deaths occur from bride burning every year in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Dr. Ashley K. Jutla, MD and David Heimbach describe bride burning by saying that "the husband and/or in-laws have determined that the dowry, a gift given from the daughter's parents to the husband, was inadequate and therefore attempt to murder the new bride to make the husband available to remarry or to punish the bride and her family." In India, dowry size is a reflection of wealth. The Indian author Rajesh Talwar has written a play on dowry deaths titled The Bride Who Would Not Burn.

In 1961, the government of India passed the Dowry Prohibition Act, making the dowry demands in wedding arrangements illegal.

In 1986, the Indian Parliament added dowry deaths as a new domestic violence crime. According to the new section 304-B of the Indian Penal Code, where a bride "within 7 years of her marriage is killed and it is shown that soon before her death, she was subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband, or any relative of her husband, or in connection with any demand for dowry, such death shall be called 'dowry death' and such husband or relative shall be deemed to have caused her death."

In Pakistan, women including Shahnaz Bukhari have been campaigning for protective legislation against the practice, for established women's shelters and for hospitals with specialised burn wards. Amnesty International has said that pressure from within, as well as from international human rights groups, may be increasing the level of awareness within the Pakistani government. The BBC estimated that roughly 300 Pakistani brides were burnt to death in 1999.

In 1988, a survey showed that 800 women were killed in this manner; in 1989, the number rose to 1100, and in 1990 it stood at 1800 estimated killings. Newspapers in Lahore in a six-month period (1997) reported on average 15 attacks a month. According to an estimate by Human Development in South Asia, on average there are 16 cases of bride burnings a month. Women's eNews reported 4000 women attacked in this manner in Islamabad's surroundings over an eight-year period and that the average age range of victims is between 18 and 35 with an estimated 30 percent being pregnant at the time of death. Shahnaz Bukhari has said of such attacks:

Either Pakistan is home to possessed stoves which burn only young housewives, and are particularly fond of genitalia, or looking at the frequency with which these incidences occur there is a grim pattern that these women are victims of deliberate murder.

According to the Progressive Women's Association such attacks are a growing problem and in 1994 on International Women's Day announced that various NGOs would join to raise awareness of the issue.

Occasionally, bride burning happens among resettled Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in other parts of the world, including the United States.

Aleyamma Mathew was a registered nurse at a hospital in Carrollton, Texas, who died of burn wounds on 5 April 1992. She and her husband, Mathew Varughese, had immigrated from India two decades before and had three daughters in the United States. The couple had been having marital problems since the late 1980s, which culminated in a fight that led to Aleyamma's death. She was found by her children, doused in gasoline and covered in flames, dying soon after.

Brief articles were run in the Dallas Morning News and The Atlanta-Journal Constitution after the incident, while the Dallas Observer ran a detailed, nine-page article covering Aleyamma's death. The article faced some criticism[by whom? ] for its portrayal of non-Western countries as backward or inappropriate: "Battered by her husband, Aleyamma Mathew remained true to her culture. In the end she became its victim."

There are current governmental initiatives to criminalize bride burning and grassroots organizations working to combat the practice, as well as international laws working against human rights violations. Finally, there are many proposed initiatives in place to end bride burning globally.

In 1961, India enacted the Dowry Prohibition Act, to halt dowry murders. It was amended in the early 1980s to "rectify several inherent weaknesses and loopholes" in order to make it a criminal offense if the husband or his relatives causes a woman to "die of burns or bodily injury or unnatural circumstances within seven years of the marriage and where there is evidence that she suffered cruelty and harassment in connection with the dowry." Unfortunately, this particular law does not provide a comprehensive definition of dowry, which can change the way it is demanded and delivered. Ultimately, this allowed perpetrators more flexibility in the court of dowry death. The seven-year clause is equally problematic, as it simply allowed husbands to wait until that period ended to burn or otherwise cause the death of their bride.

Another major Indian law, the 1983 "Anti-Cruelty Statute", prohibits cruelty towards a wife and subjects the husband and/or in-laws to fines or imprisonment if they inflict cruelty upon the wife. However, the law is equally ambiguous, which results in inadequate enforcement of bride burning and dowry murders.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares the following: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood". Article 5 proclaims: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

In India, where most cases of bride burning are seen, domestic legislation is typically inadequately enforced. Because of this, grassroots organizations "have taken up the cause to halt bride burning". One example of this is government-funded family counseling center cells, in which the intended goal is to strengthen family ties and reduce legal intervention. However, often such cells only reinforce the stereotype of "women's sharp tongues" and men's power to "hit and beat". Other similar counseling-style NGOs have been developed in order to resolve such issues with similar consequences.

Primarily, alternative initiatives resolve around reform of current flawed, failing laws. One proposal calls for the expansion of the protection for women under the international refugee law in order to provide asylum to victims of gender discrimination or gendercide. One way this could be achieved would be by including women in the definition of a "persecuted social group", which would allow their gender to seek international asylum under fear of dowry-related persecution globally.

In April 1984, European Parliament introduced a proposal that would "protect women from persecution on the basis of gender" by reforming international refugee laws. However, the proposal was rejected.

Another solution is to increase economic interest for women by establishing their property rights. Even when married, the bride has no rights over the property belonging to the husband while he is living. In giving women the right to own property, women would not need to marry for economic or legal purposes, thus disregarding the dowry practice.

Garg, A.S. (1990). Bride burning: crime against women. New Delhi, India: Sandeep Publication, Rohtak: Marketed by the Bright Law House. OCLC 24784662.

Umar, Mohd (1998). Bride burning in India: a socio legal study. New Delhi, India: APH Publishing. ISBN 9788170249221.

Menski, Werner (1998). South Asians and the dowry problem. Group on Ethnic Minority Studies Series (GEMS). Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books and School of Oriental & African Studies. ISBN 9781858561417.

Ravikant, Namratha S. (2000). "Dowry deaths: proposing a standard for implementation of domestic legislation in accordance with human rights obligations". Michigan Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law. 6 (2): 449-498.

Lakhani, Avnita (2005). "Bride-burning: the "elephant in the room" is out of control". Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal. 5 (2): 249-298. Pdf.

Bhave, Sunil (March 2007). "Deterring dowry deaths in India: applying tort law to reverse the economic incentives that fuel the dowry market". Suffolk University Law Review. 40 (2): 291-314. Lexis Nexis. Suffolk University Law Review.

Anderson, Siwan (Fall 2007). "The economics of dowry and brideprice". Journal of Economic Perspectives. 21 (4): 151-174. doi:10.1257/jep.21.4.151. S2CID 13722006. Pdf.

A bride-burning victim in Nepal says her counselors are helping her heal and look to the future

Peck, Michael D. (August 2012). "Epidemiology of burns throughout the World. Part II: Intentional burns in adults". Burns. 38 (5): 630-637. doi:10.1016/j.burns.2011.12.028. PMID 22325849.

1. ^ Lakhani, Avnita (2005). "Bride-burning: the "elephant in the room" is out of control". Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal. 5 (2): 249-298. pdf.

2. ^ "Brideburning claims hundreds in India - CNN". Articles.cnn.com. 18 August 1996. Archived from the original on 26 March 2012.

3. Kumar, Virendra; Kanth, Sarita (December 2004). "Bride burning". . 364 (special issue): 18-19. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(04)17625-3. PMID 15967137. S2CID 32625512.

4. Newage, Indian (16 January 2010). Disposal of Cases by Courts (PDF). National Crime Records Bureau, India. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 May 2013.

5. ^ Nangia, Anshu (1996-1997). "Note: the tragedy of bride burning in India: how should the law address it?". Brooklyn Journal of International Law. 22: 637-694. Lexis Nexis. Archived 8 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine

6. ^ Pardee, Laurel Remers (1996). "The dilemma of dowry deaths: domestic disgrace or international human rights catastrophe". Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law. 13: 491-522. Lexis Nexis. Archived 8 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine

7. ^ Jutla, Rajni K.; Heimbach, David (March-April 2004). "Love burns: an essay about bride burning in India". Journal of Burn Care & Rehabilitation. 25 (2): 165-170. doi:10.1097/01.bcr.0000111929.70876.1f. PMID 15091143.

8. "The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961". wcd.nic.in. Ministry of Women and Child Development (India). 20 May 1961. Archived from the original on 9 September 2015.

9. ^ Johnson, Cate; et al., eds. (October 1996). "Annex C: Legal framework surrounding domestic violence in India". Domestic violence in India: recommendations of the women's rights team: report to USAID/India PROWID. pp. 28-42. (Explaining section 304-B of the Indian Penal Code.)

10. ^ Staff writer (23 July 1997). "Kitchen fires kill Indian brides with inadequate dowry". New Delhi, India: UPI. Extract.

11. "World:South Asia Bride burning 'kills hundreds'". BBC.co.uk. 27 August 1999.

12. ^ 'Pakistan: Honour killings of girls and women' in Amnesty International Report 1999, (London: September 1999)

13. ^ Jilani, Hina (2004), "Violence against women: the legal system and institutional responses in Pakistan", in Goonesekere, Savitri; Ahmed, Eman M. (eds.), Violence, law and women's rights in South Asia, New Delhi Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, p. 161, ISBN 9780761997962. Preview.

14. Terzieff, Juliette (27 October 2002). "Pakistan's fiery shame: women die in stove deaths". Women's eNews.

15. ^ Rappaport, Helen, ed. (2001). Encyclopedia of women social reformers, volume 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 115. ISBN 9781576071014.

16. ^ Parameswaran, Radhika (1996). "Coverage of "Bride Burning" in the "Dallas Observer": a cultural analysis of the "Other"". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 16 (2-3): 69-100. doi:10.2307/3346804. JSTOR 3346804. Pdf.

17. ^ Greenberg, Judith G. (2003). "Criminalizing dowry deaths: the Indian experience". Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law. 11 (2): 801-846. Pdf.

18. ^ Cipriani, Linda (1993). "Gender and persecution: protecting women under international refugee law". Georgetown Immigration Law Journal. 7: 511-548.

19. ^ Gopal, Gita (1993). "Gender and economic inequality in India: the legal connection". Boston College Third World Law Journal. 13 (1): 63-86. Pdf.

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Bride burning is a form of domestic violence practiced in countries located on or around the Indian subcontinent. A category of dowry death, bride-burning occurs when a young woman is murdered by her husband or his family for her family's refusal to pay additional dowry.

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Indian youth may appear modern, but they are resisting real change

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The reason why Indian society can often feel stagnant at times is the sheer weight of the past which new generations have failed to remove, says Amrit Dhillon

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Five years after the notorious gang rape and murder of a 23-year old physiotherapy student on a bus in Delhi, the BBC's Geeta Pandey asks if India is a better place for women today.

First, a recap of the horrific crime - the young woman and her male friend had boarded the bus just after 9pm on 16 December 2012.

She was then gang-raped by the driver and five other men on the bus while her friend was badly beaten up. Naked and bloodied, the couple were thrown by the roadside to die.

They were taken to hospital after some passers-by found them and called the police. She clung to life for a fortnight before succumbing to her injuries. Her friend lives, scarred for life.

The brutality of the assault stunned India and the press dubbed her Nirbhaya - the fearless one.

But I had met my own Nirbhaya a decade before that, while I was producing a BBC radio feature on rape in India.

I met her at a shelter for women run by an NGO in central Delhi. She was from a poor family in Gujarat, a member of a travelling tribe that has no fixed address.

The woman had come to the capital along with her husband and young child.

For a few months the couple had worked as day wage labourers and were returning to Gujarat for a visit.

At the railway station, in the melee, she was separated from her family. They boarded the train as it moved and she got left behind.

As she sat on the platform weeping, a kindly looking Sikh man offered help. He told her he was a truck driver and would take her home.

She took him up on his offer since she had no money.

For the next four days, she was driven around on the truck, brutally gang-raped by the driver and three other men.

Believing that she was about to die, they threw her by the roadside which is where she was found and taken to hospital.

When I went to meet her, she had just been brought in from the hospital after months of treatment.

Her body resembled a war zone. Her insides were so badly damaged that she had to walk around with a pipe that came out of her abdomen and was attached to a bag. She showed me burn marks on her breasts where her rapists had branded her with cigarettes.

She had no idea where her family was. The NGO said their attempts to track them down had failed.

I spent more than an hour talking to her.

It made me sick just to hear what she had been through, about the brutality human beings can be capable of.

I was traumatised and, for the first time in my life, I felt fear. And I projected my fears onto two women closest to me - my sister and my best friend, who was also a BBC colleague, two very independent and feisty women.

Every time they would visit me, I would insist as they left that they messaged me once they reached home.

They humoured me initially, sometimes they would get irritated because if they forgot, I'd call them in the morning and harangue them. Sometimes they made fun of me.

And then 16 December 2012 happened.

As the Indian press gave out gory details of the brutal assault, the trauma was brought alive for a horrified nation.

For a fortnight, as Nirbhaya lay in her hospital bed fighting for life, television channels and newspapers reported every little detail of what had been done to her.

My sister and my friend no longer made fun of me.

But that was not the only change. Giving in to the demands of protesters who took to the streets across India, the government brought in a tougher new law to deal with crimes against women.

But the biggest change has been the one in attitudes - sexual attacks and rapes have become topics of living room conversations and that is a huge deal in a country where sex and sex crimes are a taboo, something to be brushed under the carpet, not discussed at length.

Taking control of the conversation is the first step to India becoming a better place for women. And this conversation has spilt on to social media and India is in the grip of, to borrow a phrase from Nobel laureate VS Naipaul, a "million mutinies now".

Every incident, big or small, is being discussed and written about, and women's rights to safe living and equality have been under much greater scrutiny. In recent years, we've written about many of these campaigns:

Women fighting to enter Hindu temples

Muslim shrines are no longer out of bounds for women

Women who are challenging traditional beliefs about menstruation

How Muslim women fought, and won, the battle against instant divorce

College students who are campaigning to break the oppressive cage of patriarchal restrictions.

It's not that women were not speaking out earlier - we've had warriors who've been fighting for decades, challenging every thought and idea rooted in patriarchy.

Over the next few days, we'll be bringing you stories of some of these women who have relentlessly campaigned for a better, safer and more inclusive world for themselves and others.

The question is: have they been successful?

Recently released National Crime Records Bureau statistics for the year 2016 paint a dismal picture - crimes against women continue to rise.

We still have thousands of brides murdered for dowry, tens of thousands of women and girls raped, hundreds of thousands of incidents of domestic violence and female foetuses being aborted.

In the past week alone, we have reported on the brutal rape, torture and murder of a six-year-old, the gang rape of a 16-year-old cancer survivor and a Bollywood actress who was sexually harassed by a fellow passenger on a flight.

But what is heartening is the refusal of women to give up their fight. And that's where our hopes lie for a better future for women in India.

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Was Delhi gang rape India's #Metoo moment?

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Five years after the notorious gang rape and murder of a 23-year old physiotherapy student on a bus in Delhi, the BBC's Geeta Pandey asks if India is a better place for women today. First, a recap of the horrific crime - the young woman and her male friend had boarded the bus just after 9pm on 16 December 2012.

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Five years after the notorious gang rape and murder of a 23-year old physiotherapy student on a bus in Delhi, the BBC's Geeta Pandey asks if India is a better place for women today.

First, a recap of the horrific crime - the young woman and her male friend had boarded the bus just after 9pm on 16 December 2012.

She was then gang-raped by the driver and five other men on the bus while her friend was badly beaten up. Naked and bloodied, the couple were thrown by the roadside to die.

They were taken to hospital after some passers-by found them and called the police. She clung to life for a fortnight before succumbing to her injuries. Her friend lives, scarred for life.

The brutality of the assault stunned India and the press dubbed her Nirbhaya - the fearless one.

But I had met my own Nirbhaya a decade before that, while I was producing a BBC radio feature on rape in India.

I met her at a shelter for women run by an NGO in central Delhi. She was from a poor family in Gujarat, a member of a travelling tribe that has no fixed address.

The woman had come to the capital along with her husband and young child.

For a few months the couple had worked as day wage labourers and were returning to Gujarat for a visit.

At the railway station, in the melee, she was separated from her family. They boarded the train as it moved and she got left behind.

As she sat on the platform weeping, a kindly looking Sikh man offered help. He told her he was a truck driver and would take her home.

She took him up on his offer since she had no money.

For the next four days, she was driven around on the truck, brutally gang-raped by the driver and three other men.

Believing that she was about to die, they threw her by the roadside which is where she was found and taken to hospital.

When I went to meet her, she had just been brought in from the hospital after months of treatment.

Her body resembled a war zone. Her insides were so badly damaged that she had to walk around with a pipe that came out of her abdomen and was attached to a bag. She showed me burn marks on her breasts where her rapists had branded her with cigarettes.

She had no idea where her family was. The NGO said their attempts to track them down had failed.

I spent more than an hour talking to her.

It made me sick just to hear what she had been through, about the brutality human beings can be capable of.

I was traumatised and, for the first time in my life, I felt fear. And I projected my fears onto two women closest to me - my sister and my best friend, who was also a BBC colleague, two very independent and feisty women.

Every time they would visit me, I would insist as they left that they messaged me once they reached home.

They humoured me initially, sometimes they would get irritated because if they forgot, I'd call them in the morning and harangue them. Sometimes they made fun of me.

And then 16 December 2012 happened.

As the Indian press gave out gory details of the brutal assault, the trauma was brought alive for a horrified nation.

For a fortnight, as Nirbhaya lay in her hospital bed fighting for life, television channels and newspapers reported every little detail of what had been done to her.

My sister and my friend no longer made fun of me.

But that was not the only change. Giving in to the demands of protesters who took to the streets across India, the government brought in a tougher new law to deal with crimes against women.

But the biggest change has been the one in attitudes - sexual attacks and rapes have become topics of living room conversations and that is a huge deal in a country where sex and sex crimes are a taboo, something to be brushed under the carpet, not discussed at length.

Taking control of the conversation is the first step to India becoming a better place for women. And this conversation has spilt on to social media and India is in the grip of, to borrow a phrase from Nobel laureate VS Naipaul, a "million mutinies now".

Every incident, big or small, is being discussed and written about, and women's rights to safe living and equality have been under much greater scrutiny. In recent years, we've written about many of these campaigns:

Women fighting to enter Hindu temples

Muslim shrines are no longer out of bounds for women

Women who are challenging traditional beliefs about menstruation

How Muslim women fought, and won, the battle against instant divorce

College students who are campaigning to break the oppressive cage of patriarchal restrictions.

It's not that women were not speaking out earlier - we've had warriors who've been fighting for decades, challenging every thought and idea rooted in patriarchy.

Over the next few days, we'll be bringing you stories of some of these women who have relentlessly campaigned for a better, safer and more inclusive world for themselves and others.

The question is: have they been successful?

Recently released National Crime Records Bureau statistics for the year 2016 paint a dismal picture - crimes against women continue to rise.

We still have thousands of brides murdered for dowry, tens of thousands of women and girls raped, hundreds of thousands of incidents of domestic violence and female foetuses being aborted.

In the past week alone, we have reported on the brutal rape, torture and murder of a six-year-old, the gang rape of a 16-year-old cancer survivor and a Bollywood actress who was sexually harassed by a fellow passenger on a flight.

But what is heartening is the refusal of women to give up their fight. And that's where our hopes lie for a better future for women in India.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Was Delhi gang rape India's #Metoo moment?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Five years after the notorious gang rape and murder of a 23-year old physiotherapy student on a bus in Delhi, the BBC's Geeta Pandey asks if India is a better place for women today. First, a recap of the horrific crime - the young woman and her male friend had boarded the bus just after 9pm on 16 December 2012.

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Wry humor and a delicious grasp of the friction between generations in Bangalore are the hallmarks of Lavanya Sankaran's fresh, deeply nuanced debut collection. "A potpourri of beggars and billionaires and determinedly laid-back ways," Bangalore, India's own Silicon Valley...

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Tradition refers to the the customs, beliefs and cultural practices that are past down from one generation to the next generation. It has its origin in the past.

Modernity refers to the contemporary behavior or way of doing things. It is fresh, new and modern.

Tradition and Modernity both prevail side-by-side in India. Indian culture is a blend of tradition values and the modern spirit.

Modernity is not altogether new in India. It is more than a hundred years old and has during this period been making steady headway.

The Hindu tradition itself is not homogeneous, as many of its spokesmen and critics often seem to assume. It is true that some of the Hindu traditions are inherently incompatible with the modern spirit. In ancient India , particularly during the period of Rig Vedic Society, the Indian society was free from most of the inhibitions of later Hinduism.

The old age tradition that is still dominant in Hindu society, though some of the harmful traditions are no longer prominent today such as:

Sati is prohibited,

Indian widows are remarrying,

Child marriages are on the wand,

Caste system in India is being increasingly secularized,

Dowry system is declining,

Girl are taking active participation in education and profession.

Also read: Short Essay on Tradition and Modernization

But the supreme values of old Indian tradition are still relevant in Modern Indian Society, such as

Simplicity and non- possession of material goods,

Respect for the status and authority that go with power.

The supreme value of life is, of course, Moksha, the release from the bonds of karma and the cycle of births. All the other values and the attitudes that Hinduism commends have to be in harmony with this.

This Modern Indian society cannot completely break itself from the old traditions. No society can do that, nor is it necessary for India. Her past is remarkably rich and varied, capable of providing a starting point for modernity. Indian Tradition offers numerous instances of the spirit of free and critical inquiry of the highest intellectual order, determination to pursue truth regardless of where it leads a positive and secular approach to life and a tradition of abstract thought necessary for the growth of modern knowledge.

India need to modernize herself but she does not have to seek inspiration solely from a culture which is not a part of her own tradition. She can partly get it from her past and establish continuity with it. Indigenous symbols and myths are available, which can make the transition to modernity less traumatic than if would otherwise be.

The rich tradition and culture of India past can provides a bridge for the masses between the present and the future. Except for a handful, Indian intellectuals does not extend beyond the narrow sphere of their own professional work. For example, when an educated person (for instance a doctor, a lawyers) fall ill, they not only call in qualified doctor but also perform puja to appease the gods, take talisman and consult holy men. Indians, particularly Hindus, actually keep two opposing sets of habit patterns.

Social reforms such as, abolition of un-touchablity, the dowry system are in full motion. But if a departure from tradition or custom, such as women taking up employment, holds promise of easily visualizable benefits, their response, even in the countryside, is more encouraging than metropolitan intellectuals are likely to imagine. Whenever an imaginative leadership and enough facilities to inspire confidence have been available in recent times, people in the rural areas have shown commendable willingness to adopt new ideas and practices. Those who have watched the attitude of the agricultural community in western Maharashtra to programmes of work in the fields of education, agriculture and even family planning would be inclined to believe that the lack of leadership and facilities, not irrational attachment to tradition, is the real problem that advocates of modernity have to solve.

Indian Society continue to live in two worlds, the traditional and the modern, at the same time. What seems to have happened with most of us is that we have accepted modernity in our professional work, but we continue to be traditional in our values and attitudes unless personal gain is involved.

Consequently, the Western liberal institutions-universities, for example, or the press-introduced in India, still function largely in an authoritarian way.

Modernity has a wider connotation than modernization. The latter refers to civilization and mainly implies a high level of literacy and urbanization with vertical and geographical mobility, a high per capita income and a sophisticated economy that has gone beyond the take-off stage. Modernity, on the other hand, connotes a certain type of culture whose quality is determined by rationality, the liberal spirit in its broadest sense, plurality of opinion and centers of decision making, autonomy in the various fields of experience, secular ethics, and respect for the private world of the individual.

We need to identifying and preserve the precious elements of Indian culture such as Music, dance, handicrafts, and the like. One may also seek to preserve a great deal of the color and variety in certain aspects of Indian life such as food, dress, and festivals. However, this is not enough. It is also necessary to identify the elements that must go if the spirit of modernity is not to be crushed under their weight.

This implies an inquiry into the structure and working of each of our major institutions such as family, school, the university, etc. and an insistent demand for their reform from the standpoint of modernization of India. Indian universities and colleges may be become a vital centers of a modern Indian culture. The can play an active role in the blending the old Indian traditions in the Modern society for its benefit.

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Tradition and Modernity in India - Important India

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Tradition refers to the the customs, beliefs and cultural practices that are past down from one generation to the next generation. It has its origin in the past. Modernity refers to the contemporary behavior or way of doing things. It is fresh, new and modern. Tradition and Modernity both prevail side-by-side in India.

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India between Tradition and Modernity | Journal Interview

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The Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid is talking about how India is becomming a world power. More Interviews: http://www.dw.de/program/journal/s-3232-9798

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Literature Help: Novels: Plot Overview 283: A Passage to India

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Literature Help: Novels: Plot Overview 283: A Passage to India