Menstruation: a complex saga

ABSTRACT

In their letter, Singh and Thawani highlight the gender insensitivity of the government which, after declaring items such as sindoor, bindis and condoms as tax-free, opted to levy 12% tax on sanitary napkins, equating the napkin with items such as packaged dry fruits, fruit juices, cell phones and so on. While the new sanitary napkin tax is actually a drop from the earlier 14.5%, in a regime where all taxes were reconsidered and revised, the authors’ argument that sanitary napkins should have been exempted from tax is absolutely valid.