In just one year, India slipped twenty-one places on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap index, from 87th to 108th—behind even our supposedly notorious neighbours China (where aborted female foetuses have contributed to a gender imbalance) and Bangladesh, where Islam has allegedly made the society unfriendly to women.24 Sadly, not only does India remain unsafe for women, but in the Modi era there have even been ministers who have supported or tried to protect perpetrators of such violence towards women.25
