The school will function near NGO Quarters in Kakkanad. (Representational image)

Kochi: Transgender activist and artist Kalki Subramaniam inaugurated India’s first residential transgender school in Kochi on Friday. Sahaj International School, which will operate under the National Open School system, will initially have 10 transgender students. The school is considered as an Alternate Learning Centre for school dropout transgenders.

The school will have boarding facility. It will provide opportunities for soft skill training and organic farming.

Maya Mohan and Vijayaraja Mallika, the two office-bearers of Trans India Foundation attended the event. District Collector Muhammed Y. Safeerulla, P.T. Thomas MLA also attended the inauguration. The school will function near NGO Quarters in Kakkanad.

The institution will be run by six transgenders working with the Trans India Foundation. The students have been selected from different sections of the transgender community. Besides regular subjects, the curriculum will have other skill development programmes. </s> India’s first transgender school opened in Kochi on Friday. The school, named Sahaj International, was inaugurated by transgender activist, writer and actor Kalki Subramaniam at Thrikkakara in Kerala’s Ernakulam district. This alternative learning centre works in collaboration with National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). The school, the first of its kind in the country, is expected to go a long way in ensuring equal opportunities for transgenders who have dropped out from school. The new learning centre will help them continue their education and appear for Class X and XII examinations.

“Today is an important day, a historical day, historical time… An important day, time we are opening a learning center for transgenders. Nowhere in India it has been initiated so far. That way this will be the pioneer for many other organisation in different states, a model to follow,” Kalki said.

“The most improtant tool for the underprivileged, discriminated marginalised, oppressed community is education, because education brings light, knowledge, truth and confidence.”

“Education brings the path to the beautiful life, because transgender people like me, we are abandoned by our families. Most of our biological parents don’t accept us and because of this reason most of us are left on the street and forced to beg and do sex work. This has to change if we have to change the destiny of those people who were abandoned by their families and who had lost opportunity to get educated,” Kalki said.

Lauding the organisers, district collector Muhammad Y. Safeerulla said such initiatives will help end discrimination and ensure gender justice. He said the administration will extend all support for the welfare of the transgenders.

Training for soft skills, stitching, organic farming, oration, personality development will be given to students. V S Raveendran, regional director of NIOS, said the alternate learning centre for transgender community will soon be a special accredited institution of NIOS.

The transgender school is headed by six transgenders and a woman under the Transgender Foundation. “The school will initially start with 10 students including a migrant and a differently abled transgender. There will be a pool of 60 trainers which includes teachers, social workers, doctors and engineers to support the educationally disadvantaged to strengthen their community’s social status,” said Vijayaraja Malika, the driving force behind this pioneering institution.

The transgenders had great difficulty in finding a place to start the school in the city. The organisers said most building owners had refused to give them space to start the school. The school became a reality after a Christian organisation, CMC Vimala Province, leased out a rent free building situated in a 1.5 acres plot in Thrikkakara.

Thrikkakara Municipality chairperson K K Neenu said it as a proud moment in her life as the country’s first transgender alternate school is opened in her municipality. Thrikkakara MLA P.T. Thomas also spoke. </s> India has opened a residential school for transgender people in Kochi – a city in the southwestern coastal state of Kerala – to help them to finish their school education.

Sahaj International, which is first of its kind of school, will welcome ten students, aged 25-50. Then, they will be prepared for senior secondary examination and higher senior secondary examination, i.e. 10th and 12th grade, respectively.

Transgender activist Vijayraja Mallika, who heads the school, told the BBC: "The school aims at making transgenders eligible for taking decent jobs and living a dignified life."

"We have admitted six candidates so far, all male-to-female persons, from 14 applicants. Of the 10 seats, we have reserved one for female-to-male and one for the disabled."

According to reports, the school's curriculum includes inclusive education with some vocational skills. It will also provide free gender reassignment surgery at government hospitals.

India has over two million transgender people. Despite having equal rights under the law, they face shame and are forced to get involved into sex work, begging, or dancing at weddings to make ends meet.

The school head, Mallika, said that even finding a suitable place for starting the school was a herculean task.

"We approached some 700 people and 51 households, and all of them turned us away. They seemed to think that we were looking for space for prostitution," Mallika added.

The first batch of students is from Kerala, but the transgender activist hopes to get more from all over India.

"This is a model centre. Once proved successful, we will expand the facilities and admit more people, from across India.

"Kerala has some 25,000 transgenders, and 57% of them were forced to drop out of school due to stigma. They all should get a decent accommodation the policy initiatives envisaged," she added. </s> Image copyright BBC contributor Image caption Transgender rights activist Kalki Subrahmaniam officially opened the school, which will start out with 10 pupils

A residential school for transgender people has been opened in the Indian city of Kochi, to help adults who dropped out of school finish their education.

Transgender people can face judgement and hostility in India, and around half of them fail to complete their schooling as a result.

Sahaj International is the first school of its kind in India.

It will welcome 10 pupils, aged 25-50.

The students will be prepared for India's Class 10 and 12 board exams, normally sat when students are aged 15-16 or 17-18 respectively. The curriculum will also include some vocational skills.

Transgender activist Vijayraja Mallika, who heads the school, told the BBC: "The school aims at making transgenders eligible for taking decent jobs and living a dignified life."

"We have admitted six candidates so far, all male-to-female persons, from 14 applicants. Of the 10 seats, we have reserved one for female-to-male and one for the disabled."

Teachers are also transgender

The school is in Kerala, which is the first Indian state to adopt a transgender policy against discrimination. It promotes inclusive education, and offers free gender reassignment surgery at government hospitals.

The centre's organisers said they had arranged sponsors for all the students, to pay for their food, accommodation and studies.

The teachers also belong to the transgender community - a measure designed to protect and encourage the pupils.

The decision comes after India's first transgender college principal, Manabi Bandopadhyay, resigned from her post claiming that some of her students and fellow teachers had agitated against her because of her sexual identity.

Image copyright BBC contributor Image caption Kalki Subrahmaniam called the opening of the school a "historic day"

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Transgender activists hope the school will boost students' employment prospects

India has an estimated two million transgender people, and in 2014 the country's Supreme Court ruled that they have equal rights under the law.

As well as the right to marry and inherit property, they are also eligible for quotas in jobs and educational institutions.

But abuse and exploitation are still common. Many transgender people are thrown out of home by their families, denied jobs, and forced into sex work, begging, or dancing at weddings to make ends meet.

'700 people turned us away'

Even finding a venue for the school was a challenge, as nobody was willing to rent the founders their premises.

"We approached some 700 people and 51 households, and all of them turned us away. They seemed to think that we were looking for space for prostitution," Ms Mallika said.

Finally, a suitable site was found.

All of the school's first students come from Kerala, but Ms Mallika hopes to gather more from beyond the state.

"This is a model centre. Once proved successful, we will expand the facilities and admit more people, from across India," she said.

"Kerala has some 25,000 transgenders, and 57% of them were forced to drop out of school due to stigma. They all should get a decent accommodation the policy initiatives envisaged."

The school was opened by activist Kalki Subramaniam, who is a transgender woman herself.

"This day is historic for me," she said.

Reporting by Ashraf Padanna in Trivandrum, Kerala </s> MUMBAI: A centre for transgender school dropouts is set to open this week in India to help address the challenge of a lack of formal education that forces them into low-paid jobs.

The Sahaj Alternative Learning Centre in the southern state of Kerala will initially house 10 transgender students taught by volunteer teachers and social workers.

“This is a centre for those transgender students who had to drop out of school because they were abused or because they were kicked out by their families or school authorities,” said activist Vijayraja Mallika, a founder of the centre.

“We want to try and mainstream them, and integrate them into society with a complete education and some skills with which they can find a job and be independent,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

India is estimated to have about 2 million transgender people. In 2014, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that they had equal rights under the law, and granted legal status to the third gender.

Alongside the right to marry and inherit property, they are also eligible for quotas in jobs and educational institutions.

But abuse and exploitation are common. Often thrown out of home by their families, many lack a formal education and are denied jobs, forced into sex work, begging, or dancing at weddings to make ends meet.

Recently, there have been moves to extend more benefits to the community, with Odisha state becoming the first to give transgender people welfare benefits such as pension.

Bollywood is also lending a hand, with 6 Pack Band, a pop band of transgender women, featured on the soundtrack of a Bollywood movie this year.

It was hard to find a property for the centre in Kerala, and the founders were rejected by more than 50 owners, Mallika said.

“This centre is very important because despite the laws, social acceptance is still low and we are discriminated against by employers and our own families,” said transgender activist Kalki Subramaniam, who is inaugurating the school on December 30.

The curriculum will also include some vocational skills.

“Education is the only tool we have to advance, to support ourselves and to make something of ourselves,” she said. </s> NEW DELHI — In a groundbreaking victory for gay rights, India’s Supreme Court on Thursday struck down one of the world’s oldest laws criminalizing consensual gay sex, putting to rest a legal battle that stretched for many years and burying one of the most glaring vestiges of India’s colonial past.



After weeks of deliberation in the Supreme Court and decades of struggles by gay Indians, Chief Justice Dipak Misra said the law, known as Section 377, was “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary.”

In court filings that stretched for hundreds of pages, more than two dozen petitioners related the emotional cost of living closeted lives, the bouts of depression, the abuse, the persecution, the blackmail and the coming-out journeys they had made while living under a shadow that made their most intimate behavior illegal.

“This ruling is hugely significant,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director for Human Rights Watch. India is the world’s second-most populous country, home to many millions of gay people, and Ms. Ganguly said the ruling could set a precedent for nations with similar colonial-era laws to end their “discriminatory, regressive treatment” of gay and transgender citizens. </s> This post is part of Outward, Slate’s home for coverage of LGBTQ life, thought, and culture. Read more here.

India’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the country’s colonial-era law criminalizing same-sex relations is unconstitutional, paving the way for LGBTQ equality in India and beyond.

The ruling comes after years of both advances and setbacks for LGBTQ people in India. The country’s so-called sodomy law, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, punished “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” with up to life in prison. The Delhi High Court struck down that law in 2009, writing that it violated the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and equality guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. The court noted how criminalization of same-sex relations harms the lives of LGBTQ people.

But just as Indian activists had earned a hard-fought victory, some individuals and religious groups appealed the verdict. A two-judge panel of the Indian Supreme Court overturned the decision in 2013, ruling that amending the law was the responsibility of the legislature. The 2013 decision derided the Delhi High Court for “overlook[ing] that a miniscule fraction of the country’s population constitutes lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgenders and in [the] last more than 150 years less than 200 persons have been prosecuted.”

But on Thursday, a different five-judge constitutional bench of the Indian Supreme Court unanimously overruled the 2013 decision. Chief Justice Dipak Misra explained that “the law had become a weapon for harassment for the LGBT community,” adding that “any discrimination on the basis of sexuality amounts to a violation of fundamental rights.”

Spanning hundreds of pages and citing decisions from several countries, the Indian Supreme Court’s judgment is striking for its emphasis on the value of “inclusiveness”—broader in scope than the privacy-based arguments in earlier sodomy law cases such as the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas.

“The ideals and objectives enshrined in our benevolent Constitution can be achieved only when each and every individual is empowered and enabled to participate in the social mainstream and in the journey towards achieving equality in all spheres,” the Supreme Court of India stated. “This can be achieved only by inclusion of all and exclusion of none from the mainstream.”

“All human beings possess the equal right to be themselves instead of transitioning or conditioning themselves as per the perceived dogmatic notions of a group of people,” it went on. “Let us move from darkness to light, from bigotry to tolerance and from the winter of mere survival to the spring of life―as the herald of a New India―to a more inclusive society.”

In other words, LGBTQ Indians need not retreat from public life in order to be who they are, nor must they change who they are to appear in public. They are a part of Indian social fabric.

It is difficult to overstate the significance of this opinion for Indian and global LGBTQ rights. For India’s entire history since its independence in 1947, Section 377 has reinforced the idea that discrimination and mistreatment against LGBTQ people is acceptable in Indian society. Thursday’s judgment makes clear that targeting sexual minorities under the law is illegitimate and unconstitutional. More than 1.3 billion Indians are closer to a legal system where it is no longer illegal for them to be who they are.

And like India’s decolonization in 1947, this decision is likely to reverberate across South Asia and beyond. India’s Section 377 was the first colonial sodomy law included in a post-colonial penal code, and it became a model law for countries in Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. For decades, LGBTQ activists in many of these countries have been fighting this colonial legacy. But the depiction of homosexuality and gender nonconformity as something “Western” has also long been an obstacle to LGBTQ equality in many countries. Thursday’s ruling dismantles the argument that LGBTQ people and rights are “foreign.” If India can move past its colonial legacy and treat its LGBTQ citizens with respect and dignity, why not other countries?

High-court rulings are seldom a panacea for societal discrimination, in India or elsewhere. Despite the Supreme Court of India’s ruling that transgender people have the right to self-identify as male, female, or third gender—and are entitled to benefit from affirmative action—a draft bill on transgender rights has lagged in Parliament. A 2017 report documented how police use vague laws to arrest and harass India’s sexual and gender minorities, with people living in poverty being most vulnerable to abuse. It is clear that a range of concrete steps, from police and legal services reforms to laws actively protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination, will be needed before LGBTQ Indians are not only equal, but can live equally.

Yet Thursday’s judgment marks a long-awaited hard-fought step toward LGTBQ equality under law. </s> With an aim to provide quality to the bright and talented unprivileged children, a school in Mangaluru is imparting free to students, especially daily wage labourers.

Navbharat Night High School has now turned 76-years-old but the people teaching here from last several decades have not lost their enthusiasm for doing this noble job.

This school, which is located at Shri Gayatri Devi Temple Road, not only teaches the poor children but also women who are housewives as well as auto rickshaw drivers since 1943.

"This school was open by Khalid Muhammed before India got independence. This school is unique as there is no such other school in whole Karnataka which provides during night time to the poor. We run this school with the help of corporate funds. At present, we have 20 students up to class 9th," said School headmaster Ravi Alevooraya while speaking to ANI.

"This school was started to educate those who are facing economic hardship. During the time of independence, people were having family issues. When the school started there were only four students but each year, the number is rising," said a teacher of Navbharat Night High School. </s> Angola, a west-coast country of south-central Africa, has decriminalised same sex-conduct in the country.

The discrimination was on Wednesday, January 23, decriminalised against people on the basis of sexual orientation which anyone refusing to employ or provide services to individuals based on their sexual orientation may risk two years in prison.

The decriminalization was put into effect by Angola’s parliament as the country adopted its first new penal code since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975. The bill was passed with 155 votes in favour, one against and seven abstentions.

The development gives the rights and freedoms of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, subjecting their intimate lives to unwarranted scrutiny.

In 2018, Angola gave legal status to Iris Angola, an organisation founded in June 2013 for the defense of sexual minorities in Angola.

Iris Angola described the Justice Ministry’s decision as a “historic” moment, AFP reported.

“We’re turning the page for gay citizens who now have a body that is recognised by the state which gives more weight to the work of our organisation,” said Iris Angola’s Carlos Fernandes.

This has been confirmed to be one of the reforms under the administration of President Joao Lourenco, a former defense minister who took office in 2017 after the long rule of Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

Concise News gathered that in 2018, India, Trinidad and Tobago also decriminalised homosexuality. The Indian Supreme Court ruled that the anti-gay British-era penal code, similar to Angola’s, was unconstitutional.
Sahaj International opens in Kochi in the South Indian state of Kerala. The country's first school for transgender pupils, it caters for adults who left school early.