Sukanya Shaji

The redacted version of the Hema Committee report on workplace harassment in the Malayalam film industry, which was released to RTI applicants on Monday, August

The Hema Committee Report on workplace harassment faced by women in the Malayalam film industry, released to RTI applicants on Monday, August 19, hints that there could be one or more minors among those who recalled their experience of sexual harassment before the Committee.

“Sexual harassment is the worst evil that women face in the film industry,” declares the Justice Hema Committee Report on the working conditions of women in Mal

The Malayalam film industry is monopolised by a power lobby consisting of successful men, and this lobby can make or break careers, notes the Justice Hema Commi

The Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA), on Friday, August 23, denied the existence of an all-controlling power lobby in Malayalam cinema as pointed out by the Hema Committee report. The report, which was recently released to RTI applicants on August 21, stated that the industry is under the grip of a ‘power group' and that ‘casting couch', a euphemism for sexual harassment, is the norm in the industry. But AMMA general secretary Siddique denied this in a press meet, after four days of silence on the report. Though the shocking findings of the report led to widespread public discourse in the state, neither AMMA nor any of the big stars of Malayalam cinema had responded to it until now.

“I have not heard knocks on my door. I don’t know of safety issues in the Malayalam film industry,” said actor Jomol in response to the findings of the Hema Com

“It is pure hell. We thought we had come to Thailand for a job. We were promised 8-hour work days, and a weekly off. None of that is happening. Instead, we are

Covid lockdowns were just being lifted when Anuja (name changed) moved to Kochi with aspirations of writing and eventually directing films. She came to work in Malayalam cinema a few years after the arrest of actor Dileep for allegedly orchestrating the sexual assault of a female colleague in 2017. The problems in the industry had been quite exposed by then and she only approached younger, seemingly progressive people for work. “I thought such spaces would be safer. But over three years have passed now and my guard has only gone further up, irrespective of the circle I work in,” she told TNM.

In a letter to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the Kerala Film Producers’ Association (KFPA), expressed disappointment in the Hema Committee’s work, stat

National Disaster Security Force (NDRF) personnel Raja dusted off his palms against his neon orange shorts after yet another round of shifting people out of the flood-affected Ajith Singh Nagar area in Andhra Pradesh's Vijayawada. “I have witnessed several floods. I was in Chennai when it flooded eight months ago and that was a big disaster too. But the speed with which the water flooded Vijayawada is unlike anything I have seen before,” he told TNM.