Survey on to help implement policy on transgenders
According to Babu, the survey aims to gather information about the community's demographics, socio-economic conditions, and needs to help the government allocate resources for their welfare. He was speaking at an event, Rainbow Habba 2025, organised by Sangama, an LGBTQ rights group based in Bengalurui in connection with the Stonewall Riots Day on June 28.
Stonewall Riots is a series of spontaneous riots and demonstrations that took place on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighbourhood of New York City. Stonewall riots marked a new beginning for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world. 'Once we get the data of transgender community from across Karnataka, we will do what it takes to tackle the larger issues that the community faces, so that the development is not served in piecemeal,' said Babu, while delivering his keynote address, emphasising the importance of developing public policies for the holistic development of gender and sexual minorities.
The survey was piloted in Vijayapura and Mysuru districts between March 10 and April 24, he added. According to him, it will cover all categories of transgenders, including Jogappas, Jogtas, Hijras, Kothis, Shivshakthis, and Aravanis, as well as intersex people, and those transitioning from female to male or male to female.
Manohar Elavarthi, founder and executive director of Sangama, said, 'At a time when our communities in the United States, the birthplace of the Stonewall Riots, are losing hard-won rights, we must stay vigilant. We must continue to fight for our rights both in the streets and in the courts.'
Around 200 people, including gender and sexual minority community members and their supporters, celebrated with music and dance, marking the 56th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. The event was held at the Students' Christian Movement of India (SCMI) auditorium here. Sonu Niranjan, a transgender man who attended the event, said, 'Society and politicians are slowly beginning to acknowledge transgender women, but transgender men are still not receiving the freedom and opportunities they deserve. If this needs to change, the government must recognise and understand our community.'
The day also saw felicitation of mothers who accepted their transgender children or adopted them.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hindu
3 days ago
- The Hindu
Endangered South American tree ‘staying' on a college campus in Chennai
The surest way to lose something valuable is to persist in ignorance about its value. Viewed from an ecological viewpoint, Roughbark lignum-vitae (Guaiacum officinale) might not belong to these parts. But if one accorded natural history the place it deserves but is often denied, sometimes wilfully, this Roughbark lignum-vitae needs to be made welcome, felt at home in the handful of earth in Chennai it has claimed as its own. Exotic trees have become naturalised in their adopted landscapes and are readily identified. The Roughbark lignum-vitae has not achieved that level of familiarity in Chennai; there is just a scattering of them in the city. And this clutch needs to be zealously guarded as this tree is faced with dwindling numbers everywhere. It is rare not just in Chennai, but even in lands where it is considered native. According to IUCN, the tree is endangered, exploitation of the tree for its wood (said to have been the densest in the world) having reached the tipping point. 'A small evergreen tree native to South America, it is reported to have been introduced to our parts in the 16th century. It 'adoption' could have been the result of the ornamental value it brought to a landscape: it puts out striking bluish purple flowers that attract butterflies and has bright yellow-orange fruits. In Tamil, it is called seemai vairamaram,' says T.D. Babu, a member of the Chennai District Green Committee and a key member of tree conservation organisation Nizhal. Babu underlines its special features — 'considered densest and water-proof, this tree's has been used in ship building. Its resin and bark are said to have medicinal properties. These factors led to its commercial exploitation and dwindling numbers.' In light of the threat of extinction faced by this tree, one would expect more care to be given to the clutch of Roughbark lignum-vitae trees found in Chennai. One of them has the Queen Mary's College Campus for an address. Babu notes that the base of the tree has suffered damage, not natural but human-inflicted in the past. It also displays 'wounds' further up its gnarled frame — an amputated branch. Babu wants the state of the tree's precincts to reflect its preciousness. Currently, the earth it stands in is overrun with weeds. This is the status report about this tree at Queen Mary's College campus as on August 8, 2025. Besides, on that day, this Roughbark lignum-vitae was wearing a nameboard not meant for it; one erroneously identifying it as a Ficus benghalensis moraceae (banyan tree). Babu explains why this tree at Queen Mary's College should be placed within an impregnable hedge of protection. 'In Chennai we lost a huge Roughbark lignum-vitae tree in a private property, a perfume factory in Adyar. Another massive tree on Swamy Sivananda Salai . We are now left with this one near the canteen at Queen Marys College campus; another inside Rostrevor Gardens, a railways quarters Anna salai; one more large tree inside Kalaingnar Poonga on Radhakrishnan Salai. There is a young Roughbark lignum-vitae each at Kalakshethra campus in Thiruvanmiyur and Lady Willington Institute of Advanced Study in Education at Kamarajar Sala. Outside Chennai, twin Roughbark lignum-vitae trees are found on the campus of Tamil Nadu Agriculture University in Coimbatore.'
The Hindu
6 days ago
- The Hindu
Madras Day series on natural history: a survivor at the Marina
At the Marina beach, an old man warming a low wall mounted with a steel grille finds a silent companion in an old Neermaruthu tree. The tree stands in a garden enclosed by this wall. The two seem connected at more than a physical level. They are at comparable life stages. The old man has weariness of time weighing down on him, getting by on a walker, which he has kept next to him, as a setting sun douses him in a gentle light. Bent and wizened not as much by age as vandalism, the tree seems to stretch out towards the ebbing sun. Its buttress has been chewed out, and in the huge hollow, an opportune young Peepal tree grows. The inside of the hollowed-out buttress bears a burnt look, the black inside contrasting with the natural whiteness on the outer surface of the intact buttress and the trunk. T.D. Babu, key member of tree conservation organisation Nizhal and a member of the Chennai District Green Council, points out that this old tree makes a commentary on the landscape. Being an indicator species, it is a trusted chronicler of the landscape's history, now rudely overshadowed by development. This tree stands at a section of the Marina, where a life-size statue of Bharathiyar does too. To its west, the tree finds the office of the Water Resources Department located on the other side of Kamarajar Salai. Cooum river is not too far from the scene. To the north, the tree finds the river entering under the Napier bridge, holding hands with the thick waters of the Buckingham Canal before bounding down the last stretch merrily towards the sea. Babu explains that Neermaruthu (Terminalia Arjuna; called in everyday conversations across India as Arjuna) is a species found along rivers and other waterways, largely along the coast. This tree was not planted and occurred naturally and is therefore an iconic representation of the landscape's intrinsic character. In the olden days, the Cooum and the sea would have interacted way more differently than they do now, and the former's contours would have changed over the centuries. Stands of Neermaruthu trees in the vicinity of the Cooum in a pre-development era could not be ruled out. This lone, old tree is probably the rare one to survive this development. With whatever vim it has, this tree ought to be protected for the living showcase of natural history that it is.
The Hindu
01-08-2025
- The Hindu
A board now warns people off this old Strychnine tree, one of just two found in the whole of Chennai
Where people cannot look beyond the commonplace, the unusual will not be recognised, let alone valued. In this milieu, those rubbing shoulders with the unusual might need to speak up for it. Tree conservation organisation Nizhal has taken that step, putting up a board that utters a strident word of warning to protect an old Strychnine tree. In Tamil, the wording follows the tone of the programming language Prolog, being declarative (this is not an exact translation, but the communication proceeds somewhat along the lines of 'if you bring harm to this tree, you will come to harm') and not just plain imperative (which would have been 'do not harm this tree'). There is official weight behind the move, the board carrying the logos of Greater Chennai Corporation and Tamil Nadu Government in addition to Nizhal's. Even if they were to live for an eon, a majority of people in Chennai would not recognise a Strychnine tree (Etimaram in Tamil) in the manner they would a neem. Going by documentation, Strychnos nux-vomica (the biological name for strychnine trees) has taken up a remarkably limited surface area in Chennai. A venerable, hugely aged Strychnine tree is found at Ponni Amman Koil in Injambakkam on East Coast Road. The only other known Strychnine tree is at ICF, a Gen Z in comparison to its older relative in Injambakkam. In the light of the species' rare presence, the old Strychnine tree in Injambakkam found a hedge of protection — a figurative hedge — being laid around it. The hedge held up when that section of East Coast Road was being widened. At the behest of T.D. Babu, part of Chennai District Green Committee and a key member of Nizhal, the State Highways Department took an extraordinary effort to ensure this tree continued to stand tall when most other things in its line were levelled to the ground to facilitate road-widening work. A stormwater drain skirted around the tree. As proven time and again, a thing that survived a sledgehammer might find its end with a flyswatter. This idea took root in Babu's mind when he noticed a JCB parked near the tree while he was driving past one day. He stopped and found out that power-cable laying work was being carried out close to the tree. Though he knew there was no plan to lift even a little finger against the tree, he felt impelled to tell the workers what this tree was all about. Babu says he also left his number with a roadside vendor nearby seeking that he be informed if any activity that was not in the interests of the tree was noticed. Babu says he made sure that a board was installed to tell people about the tree's significance and issue a warning to anyone who might think of bringing harm to it. Babu observes that Nizhal has given the Forest Department a list of trees in and around Chennai that have heritage value and therefore, ought to be protected at any cost. The Forest Department is preparing plaques for all these trees, explaining their significance and their 'protected' status. Until that plaque arrives, this board would do the job for this old Strychnine tree.
