News Watch: Kishwar researched, conceptualized, scripted and anchored a prime-time program called News Watch on DD Channel 1. This was an investigative weekly program of media review, providing an informed critique of media reports on important issues covering the content, as well as the presentation of media reports;
Baazgasht: A Youth Program for Srinagar Doordarshan ( 2003).
Manushi Geet: a cassette of songs on the need to strengthen women’s rights within the parental family and nondiscriminatory upbringing of the girl child. Some of these songs were part of a street play titled Roshni staged by Manushi all over Delhi.
Manas Series: A series of six documentaries for Doordarshan on the following themes:
1. Dahej: Zaroorat ya Majboori (Dowry: Compulsion vs. Need): This deals with social and economic dynamics behind the spread of culture of dowry despite stringent legislation.
2. Aurtein: na ghar ki, na ghat ki (The disinheritance of women from parental property): Parents might spend lakhs in buying consumer goods for their daughters as dowry, but very few are willing to give a share of the parental property to daughters. This documentary explores the
implications of the growing culture of disinheritance of women in our country.
3. Sharaab: Kaun pilaye, kaun rukaye? (Liquor and State Policy: why anti- liquor movements inevitably turn anti-state?) This film challenges some of the popular myths about anti-liquor movements in India and reviews the economic and political dynamics of anti-liquor movements in four different states: Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
4. Mera Bharat Pareshan—Socialist era statist controls on agriculture and the consequent rural-urban divide promoted through Nehruvian farm policy
5. Udaarikaran: Kewal Oopar ka Udaar (License Permit Raj: a view from below). This film explores how the working of the License-Permit-Raid- Raj thwarts the earning ability and efforts of the poor city migrants such as street vendors and cycle rickshaw pullers to move out of the poverty trap. It provides moving glimpses as to how the poorest of the poor are fleeced of their earning and the urgent need to evolve a bottoms-up approach to economic reforms.
6. Banaye Ajoobe, Kehlayein Picchde (The impoverishment and marginalization of India’s traditional technologists and artisans). Today India is considered a poor agricultural country. But until about 200 years back, our country was regarded as the world’s leading manufacturing society. Europeans took hazardous voyages to India, attracted by its wealth and exquisite luxury goods. This technological legacy was the inheritance of a group of jatis known as ‘Vishwakarma’, who are found in every Indian city and village. Tragically enough, the jatis who elevated our country’s technological, craft and industrial skills to such astonishing levels over centuries have today been declared as “Backward” and “Most Backward Castes”. What impact has their devaluation had on the rest of society? These are some of the questions explored in this documentary.
The films on street vendors and cycle rickshaw pullers have played a vital role in mobilizing opinion for policy and far reaching law reform for these two sectors.
Kisse Kanoon Ke: A series of 13 programs commissioned by Doordarshan reviewing the actual fallout of various laws that have been enacted for the ostensible purpose of protecting or strengthening women’s rights in post-independence India. The legislations covered include the following:
a) Laws to protect women against domestic violence b) Anti-rape laws.
c) Laws against obscenity and indecent portrayal of women.
d) Equal Remuneration Act.
e) Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act
f) Reservation for women in panchayats and zilla parishads g) Law against bigamy.
h) Bill to provide 33 per cent reservation for women in legislatures. i) Laws to curb Sex Determination Tests.
j) Muslim Women’s Protection Act of 1986.
k) Laws to curb prostitution l) Sati Prohibition Act.
m) Inheritance laws for women n) Anti dowry laws.
A Tale of Four Cities: Documentary film on suicides by street vendors in protest against municipal and police harassment (2003)