The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), launched in February 2006 was renamed in October 02, 2009 as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (henceforth, MGNREGA). It is an anti-poverty flagship programme of the Government of India. The key purpose of MGNREGA is to enhance wage employment in the rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed employment to every household in a financial year.  The MGNREGA implementation status report for the financial year 2012-2013 unfolds that the programme has already provided employment to 44.9 million households across 28 districts and five union territories. Hence, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the impact of MGNREGA on women beneficiaries. A plethora of research argues that MGNREGA, which promotes inclusive growth, is a vehicle of change, a lifeline for rural women. So far, however, there has been very little discussion about the impact of MGNREGA on women beneficiaries of Assam. This research is an attempt to examine the participation of women in MGNREGA, Assam. It critically looks at the issues, problems and challenges confronted by the women while working at MGNREGA. Written from a feminist perspective on gender, poverty and women’s empowerment, the research seeks to address the problems of the women beneficiaries through their lived experiences. For this, we conducted in-depth interviews with the women beneficiaries in the months of August and September, 2009 in four remote areas namely, Burka, Chandrapur, Barbhang and Muguriya, the first two situated in Kamrup, while the third and the fourth in Barpeta districts of Assam, where the programme of MGNREGA is on-going. The findings of the research suggest measures so that the programme can be made more effective in the long run.

Background: Surrogacy is a reproductive practice that has been strongly marketed in India as a solution for childless couples. As a result, the number of surrogacy clinics is increasing. Meanwhile, a global discourse on surrogacy, originating from a Western perspective, has characterized surrogacy as being exploitative of women in low-income settings, where poverty drives them to become surrogate mothers.Objective: This study explored perspectives on surrogacy from men and women in Assam, an Indian state known to be a low-income setting. Surrogacy arrangements in Assam are still uncommon. It can be expected that the dominant global discourses on surrogacy will be unfamiliar to the general population, and the objective was also to position the results within the divergent global discourses of surrogacy.Methods: In order to explore local views on surrogacy, we conducted individual interviews and focus group discussions with people from various socioeconomic groups in Assam.Results: Our findings reveal that people in Assam perceive surrogacy as a good option for a childless couple, as it would result in a child who is a ‘blood’ relation – something highly desirable for sociocultural reasons. However, the part played by the surrogate mother complicates local views on surrogacy. Most people consider payment to the surrogate mother contrary to societal norms. A surrogate mother is also often judged in a moral light, either as a ‘bad mother’ for selling her child, or as a ‘noble woman’ who has helped a childless couple and deserves payment for her services.Conclusions: In order to decrease the stigmatization of women, a regulatory policy is needed that will take into account the complex understandings of surrogacy and perceptions of surrogate mothers in Indian society. In policy, the possible effect of the dominant exploitation discourse needs to be modulated by local understandings of this reproduction method.

Domestic violence is an evil that never dies. It is an indicator of inequality, injustice and discrimination of the social system. Though there is no justification for its existence in a civilized society, then why it is so difficult to root it out? Why does it persist to exist even after the prevalence of legal provisions to combat domestic violence? The causes maybe embedded on the facts that it involves intimate relationship on the one hand and exercise of power relations on the other. These power relations put women at disadvantaged positions, which are prominently gendered in nature. Assam, a state in the north-eastern corner of India, is unique in its own distinction. It is a region with myriad communities with varied culture, ethnic and social background. Distinctive statistical differences of domestic violence exist among these communities. These variations may categorically be due to the nature of power relations in intimate relations among these communities, which is probed with the application of oral history method. An effort is made through this study to explore the societal attitudes concerning power within intimate human relations. The focus of this paper is to search for the social beliefs attached with the power relations that have been governing them or promoting them in the form of social values, customs, rituals and traditions, which are the nucleus of domestic violence in Assamese society. This study intends to investigate the power relations amongst the different communities. Oral history method is applied to probe the socialisation process of the victims of domestic violence and to analyse how it creates power relations that caters to domestic violence. It gives a deeper understanding to the gendered nature of power in intimate relations. It illustrates that power relations is created through socialisation process and is a contributing attribute to domestic violence among spouses.

Institutionalisation of Women’s Studies (WS) in India although started in the 1970s, it took a decade further to cross the threshold of Northeastern States. The  isolation  which the Northeast of India has always faced in the social, economic and political spheres was also reflected  in the case of establishment of the Women’s Studies Centres as the then Vice Chancellor Dr. Deba Prasad Barooah had to struggle against the University Grants Commission for establishing it in Gauhati University. Again, the narrative of WSRC, GU do not find mention in the book Narratives from Women's Studies Family: Recreating Knowledge where experiences of 17 centres from across the country are illustrated. This paper investigates all such structural difficulties, negligence and struggle faced by one of the first Women’s Studies Centre of Northeast India, established in Gauhati University (GU), since its conceptualisation to inception in 1989 till the present. It attempts in revealing the experiences of the Directors, yielding the efforts behind the setting up of the centre, the role played by different individuals both internal and external of the University towards the establishment of the Centre, the catalysts that prevented the premature decay of the Centre and most importantly the struggle for space, identity and recognition the constraints faced to obtain them. To achieve these goals oral history method was applied to explore the experiences of the previous directors and the author (2nd author) herself. The narratives illustrate the history of struggles, challenges and the subsequent development over a span of more than twenty five years. The paper documents the support the University provided despite being a patriarchal institution for fostering of the WSRC, which in gradual years took steps to produce the Department of Women’s Studies. It will also look into the progressive role Women’s Studies played not only in the varsity internally but also at the external front through research and advocacy by inducing new panoramic view towards and discussion of women’s issues in a multidimensional framework.

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