Nazia Erum
New Delhi
Kickstarted a conversation on the marginalisation of Muslim mothers in India
Delhi in 2014 was very different from the year before. The wounds of the horrifying Nirbhaya rape case still fresh, the capital began to seethe with a new separatist sentiment after the BJP came to power, or, at least that's what many concerned citizens felt.

According to a Reuters report, since 2010, 24 Muslims have been killed across India in cow-related violence. It reached a feverish pitch post 2014, when there was a clarion call for a ban on beef. It was in this environment that Nazia Erum was experiencing the new joys of motherhood, albeit with trepidation. "It started with a niggling fear, which just refused to go, when I had my baby. The fear just crawled inside me, and felt like it was under my skin," recalls Erum, who is the youngest Indian to represent south-east Asia at the Global Fund Board - an international organisation that aims to leverage additional resources to end AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.