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Raksha Kumar is a multimedia journalist focusing on human rights, politics and social injustices. Since 2011, she has reported for The New York Times, BBC, Guardian, TIME, South China Morning Post, Foreign Policy, Scroll.in and The Hindu.
In March 2018, she was awarded the National Foundation for India Media Award for her reportage on land rights in India. In 2017, she was shortlisted for Kurt Schork Memorial Awards in International Journalism. For her work on land conflicts in India, she was awarded the Chameli Devi Award for Outstanding Media Personality in 2016.
As a reporter, her focus areas are land and forest rights of the most vulnerable communities. However, since these issues cannot be looked at in isolation, Raksha found herself increasingly reporting on armed conflict around resource extraction in places like Chhattisgarh and Kashmir.
In 2015, she wrote, shot and directed a documentary film on Rationalists in Contemporary India. It was aired by India's public broadcaster, Doordarshan. The film has been screened in 29 locations across the country until now.
The same year, Raksha was selected as a Chevening Fellow by the University of Westminster to research on Hindu Right in the UK. This helped Raksha build on her post graduate dissertation which was on Hindu Fundamentalists in India.
With a Fulbright Scholarship for Leadership Development, she went to the Columbia University in New York City to pursue a Masters in Science. As a student, she was offered the Scripps Howard Fellowship to report from Israel and the West Bank. Since 2011, Raksha has reported from 11 countries across the world.
Raksha worked as an editor at NDTV, leading English news channel in India. She was the editorial head of a two-hour prime time news show, where she lead a team of about 20 junior journalists.
A graduate of Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi, Raksha was a dedicated student and a passionate public speaker.
A Homophobic, Anti-Abortion Brit "Lectures" In India’s Medical Colleges
Abhishek Clifford heads a non-profit called Rescue 108, which claims to work in the anti-human trafficking space.
Earlier this month, first year medical students at at the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI) were lectured on:
India’s “baby genocide”, the “sin” of premarital sex, the “evil” of homosexuality, and the “myth” of evolution.
Clifford said pro-choice activists — those who support a woman’s right to continue or terminate her pregnancy — had killed a lot more people than the Holocaust had, a participant in one of his lectures in Bangalore recalled.
Clifford is believed to be of British origin.
Unlike in several western nations, abortion is not an electoral issue in India. On the contrary, India has liberal abortion laws which, to a large extent, respect the choice of a woman. However, there are enough detractors within the country who believe that aborting a foetus is like killing a baby.
Therefore, it is important to not let students of medical and technology colleges be swayed by unscientific beliefs.
Other areas of Clifford's interest include:
"science" refuting evolution and proving intelligent design (the idea that the world was created by God), with the website peddling anti-abortion videos aimed at selling propaganda as science.
When you read Clifford's quotes in this story, you can't help but wonder how he funds his "international NGO". Where is the money to brainwash students against women's choice coming from?
