Overwhelmed by the victory in the passage of the Women's Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha, women's groups on Wednesday asked the government to place it in the Lok Sabha at the earliest to sustain the momentum. “We hope that the United Progressive Alliance will do so immediately, and evolve strategies to address the possible obstacles to its smooth passage,” the National Women's Organisations — a collective of several groups —...

The poor health indices and health care in rural India have always been met with lofty ideals sans action; they demand urgent and radical solutions.  The recent proposal to introduce a new medical course, Bachelor of Rural Health Care, has been met with resistance from many sections of the medical fraternity. Its opponents argue that it will result in second-class health care for rural India and increase the rural-urban divide....

Birth gender disparity is greatest in the region China, India together account for over 85 million of the nearly 100 million “missing'' women The problem of “missing girls'' – a scenario where more boys are born than girls, as girl foetuses are presumably aborted, and women die from health and nutrition neglect – is growing in Asia Pacific. Birth gender disparity is the greatest in East Asia, where 119 boys are born...

Vina Mazumdar refers to herself as "grandmother" of women's studies in India. She was secretary of the Committee on Status of Women in India that brought out the first report on condition of women in the country, Towards Equality. She was co-founder of Centre for Women's Development Studies, an institution that has influenced the course of women's studies in India. Quite the firebrand even today at 80, she is disarmingly...

It is imperative that at this point in time we “prioritise women's empowerment as an intrinsic part of our development agenda and policy,” Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has said. “The protection of women's rights and their empowerment is our collective responsibility, and the government, social organisations and the civil society, in partnership with the media, need to create a congenial atmosphere and shape public opinion so that women have freedom...