Right to Toilet Campaign formerly known as Right to Pee Pune City Campaign was conducted during 2014-15. Initiated in 2014 till 2015, we students led the Right to Toilet (RTT) formerly known as (Right to Pee Pune City Campaign) which was for to advocate for free, clean, safe public urinals for women and also in college campuses and public spaces in Pune City. As a united front of student activists, we were committed to both confronting the insensitive system and collaborating with civil society, government to bring about impactful change.
Our demand to increase the number of clean and safe toilets during the campaign included the following aspects:
Your Book Their Future is a Notebook, Storybook Donation Drive which we conduct in June – July. Books play an instrumental role in our life. However, many student do not have access of notebooks / storybooks. We believe that every child has the right to have notebooks and enjoy good storybooks in languages they speak and learn in. At ROSHNI our dream is to see our country where every child has access to books. Student who read more, learn better and are more likely to succeed at school as well as in life.
“Your Book Their Future” is an initiative by ROSHNI to help bridge the gap between those who want to help and those student who need books. We all by making these notebooks / storybooks accessible to children will help to achieve the dream of reading India and will spread the joy of reading and learning. In June and July we collect storybooks / notebooks and distribute it to students in need. Formerly “Your Book Their Future” was known as Kitaab Express. If you want to contribute by giving notebooks or storybooks you can call or email us, see our contact details in Contact Us page.
Tax Free Sanitary Napkin Campaign was initiated to request government to remove GST Tax on Sanitary Pads, campaign was started in 2016 and was concluded in 2018. A woman’s body shouldn’t be treated as fair game to tax. All women on an average menstruate from the ages of 12 to 51. Despite it being the biological and hygienic requisite of more than half the population, current legislation systematically discriminates against women by taxing basic commodities such as sanitary napkins. On an average, a woman spends approximately 65 days menstruating ever year. Only 12 per cent of India’s 355 million women use sanitary napkins. Over 88 per cent of women resort to cloth, ashes and husk sand. Incidents of Reproductive Tract Infection (RTI) are 70 per cent more common among these women. Taxing sanitary napkins creates economic obstacles for women from getting easy access to them: a commodity that is not optional, but a hygienic requirement. By taxing these basic commodities, and putting them in the ‘luxury’ category, we are discouraging an improved standard of life and encouraging discrimination based on sex. This is unacceptable given that the right to sanitation and healthy life is a fundamentally guaranteed right under the Constitution of India. Women have to use sanitary napkins every month. They are a necessity, not a luxury.
Beyond affordability, Articles 14, 15, 21, and 47 of The Constitution Of India, guarantees Equality before the Law, Prohibits Discrimination based on Sex and Propagates State to improve the standard of living
Before GST Tax, sanitary napkins are taxed up to 13.5 per cent, based on the state you are living in. After GST Tax imposed, sanitary napkins are were to be taxed at 12 per cent.
If condoms and contraception are tax-free to promote their use for health reasons, so should sanitary napkins, We cannot, as a country, talk about wanting to fight for gender equality if we fail to identify how certain policies targeted specifically at the female populate, adversely affect them.
We at ROSHNI Foundation initiated Tax Free Sanitary Pads Movement on 16 Nov 2016 when our Founder spoke about ending Sanitary Pads Tax at Global Citizen Festival in Mumbai, in which he demanded 100% tax exemption for environment and health friendly pads (reusable cloth sanitary napkins and environment friendly napkins). However, we also made it clear that minimal tax should be imposed on sanitary napkins which contain non-biodegradable plastic dangerous for the environment.
Due to the efforts of all the social activist across the country and also due to the efforts of many civil society organisation, the government scrapped a controversial tax on sanitary pads in July 2018.