Gender Agenda newsletter | Let her cook

Reporter Shubhomoy Sikdar, who was in Chhattisgarh’s Naya Raipur covering the 47-day strike by mid-day meal workers in the State on February 13, describes most women’s routine.

“She [Manikpuri, one of the workers] and two other cooks unlock the school gates, open all the rooms and clean them,” he writes. “Depending on the number of children in school that day, the cooks go to the women’s self-help-group-run stores to collect rations. They clean the rice and chop the vegetables, cook the food, and have it ready 10 minutes before lunch time at 1:30 p.m. They serve the children food and then clean up. By the time she comes home, it is 3:30 p.m., and she must cook again. The children are hungry and her husband will be home soon.”

The mid-day meal scheme was first introduced in 1925, for disadvantaged children in the Madras Municipal Corporation. Since then, 95% of the workforce of the scheme, now called PM-POSHAN, have been women. From the article, it is evident that the strike is a feminist movement. At its core are thousands of women, many from rural and tribal backgrounds, demanding fair compensation for work that sustains the daily nutrition of school children. These cooks, who prepare hot meals for millions of children in the State, are paid a paltry ₹66 per day. In this economy?

Arguing that this strike is for compensation alone would be reductionist. In India’s socio-economic hierarchy, care work and food preparation have conventionally been assigned to women. That these women, essential to one of the nation’s largest nutrition programmes, earn so little reflects a broader pattern of gendered labour injustice.

Quickly, the gaps between policy and reality come through, making the injustice clear. Although the mid-day meal scheme is intended to provide nutritious meals and keep children in school, the implementation has faltered. Funding remains inadequate and many schools struggle with delays in food ingredient deliveries and poor kitchen infrastructure. Added to this are structural injustices including caste and class. Discriminatory practices, such as separate seating arrangements, denial of meals, or serving meals based on caste have been reported across the country, breaching the principles of equality and inclusion, reports this article.

These cooks are asserting that their dignity is essential in challenging a system that assigns them responsibility without rights, labour without adequate compensation, and visibility without respect. Their strike signals that women’s work, especially in public welfare systems, matters and deserves equitable recognition.

Toolkit

The Hindu’s reporter Akila Kannadasan writes this article from Coimbatore about a birding club consisting of about 30 women who meet every Sunday to document birds in the city. Called the Women Wetland Watch, the programme has covered 11 wetlands in and around the city. Over 450 women have participated since its inception in 2023, to document 146 bird species, apart from insects, butterflies, reptiles, amphibians, and wetland flora. Follow @siddharth_foundation on Instagram to keep up with this tight-knit community’s adventures, while also learning a thing or two about avians.

Wordsworth

Crime of entitlement Ten days after New Year’s Day, a software engineer was assaulted and killed by her 18-year-old neighbour, who also set her house on fire. According to the police, the motive for the crime was the techie rejecting the man’s sexual advances. Prasanna Gettu, co-founder of the Chennai-based International Foundation for Crime Prevention and Victim Care, terms this not a crime of passion, but a crime of entitlement. “It is a certain belief that a woman’s attention, time, affection, or relationship, is something they [men] are owed. When that entitlement is challenged as rejection, some men experience it as humiliation, an ego injury. Violence then becomes a way of restoring this power they’ve lost,” she says in The Hindu’s In Focus podcast.

Ouch!

“He [Jeffrey Epstein] was a paedophile who was also a power broker. He was doing things on the side. But he earned his money only via power broking, right? He introduced one person to the other. It was his job to keep track of the corridors of power. Any mention of individuals does not naturally mean that they visited his island or were involved in sexual crimes.”

News anchor Padmaja Joshi attempting to justify the names of some powerful Indian public figures who have appeared on the Epstein files

People we meet

Nandini Samy

Nandini Samy, a marketing and communication executive, says that it is imperative for her to sit at a quiet spot, preferably at a restaurant or cafe, by herself every Sunday, to strategise. Her diary is divided into two parts. One section contains future plans for work, and another for her life.

“For years, we [women] have been taught not to invest in ourselves and live selfless lives. I have found that strange. I do have a husband and a child in Class 9 but I need to take time for myself to know what I am planning to do in the future. This could be time for thinking about work, spirituality, day-to-day affairs. Anything. A little time out is essential,” she says.

Nandini says that her family is supportive of it and encourages her to break the pattern. “Women are not always meant to do things for others. When I open my diary, I have two sections. One for work and another for me. I’m going to maintain it that way,” she says.

Published – February 15, 2026 10:49 pm IST