-Down to Earth Women of a Maharashtra hamlet give husbands an ultimatum-build toilets or go without food TOILETS ARE not an issue over which one sees agitations every day. And when it comes to women agitating against husbands, it may well be an unprecedented situation. Yet, the women of Amgaon, a tiny village in Wardha district of Maharashtra, did just that. On June 24, they staged a choolband, or no-cooking protest, forcing...

-The Hindu The Planning Commission needed to be returned to its first purposes, to its transparent and audacious planning for an India progressing without old enervations and new injustices to prosperity. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. The 18th century nursery rhyme, its original probably a riddle, is loved for the one image it invokes - a great fall. The picture of a dumpy egg, of a being...

-Ecnomic and Political Weekly Despite recent improvements in the maternal health scenario in rural Assam, it remains the state with the highest number of maternal deaths in the country. Institutional delivery, antenatal care, and postnatal care have been actively promoted by the state to deal with the situation. However, state policies are still incongruously geared towards addressing the issue without taking sufficient note of the various sociocultural impediments in the way...

-Economic and Political Weekly How will the amendments to the Factories Act affect women workers? How do women view the "protections" and night work? Apoorva Kaiwar (akaiwar@yahoo.co.in) is a labour lawyer and consultant on issues of gender and labour. The central government is proposing to amend several labour laws. The process of amending them has been underway since 2011, which means that it is not only the new dispensation that is eager to...

-The Hindu Business Line Battling childhood diarrhoea with an Indian vaccine is good strategy Almost half of India's 1,76,000 diarrhoeal deaths in children below five are caused by rotavirus, the pathogen responsible for severe childhood diarrhoea. In addition, 8 lakh hospitalisations and over 30 lakh outpatient visits each year among children below 5 are triggered by diarrhoea of rotavirus origin. WHO recommends the rotavirus vaccine for infants in all national immunisation programmes. Globally,...