After 3 talaqs, woman becomes illegal for husband   Darul Uloom Deoband has ruled that talaq (divorce) given in a state of drunkenness is valid. A fatwa to this effect was issued by Darul Ifta (Fatwa Department) of the Islamic seminary on March 13. The ruling was issued on a question from a concerned brother on February 21, 2012. He wanted to know from Darul Ifta about the fate of his sister's Marriage...

By selectively borrowing habits from the West, the urban Indian has worsened his chances with cancer. Doctors say that while the city-bred Indian has willingly adopted a western diet, lapping up high-fat foods and shunning high-fibre content, he or she hasn't picked up the healthy western attitude of detecting and treating cancer early.  The end-result, as the India's Million Death Study (MDS) reported on Thursday shows, is that urban Indians are...

Much has been written about divorce being on the rise in India, sometimes accompanied by hand-wringing about the egos and inflexibility of younger couples, who seem less willing than their parents to stay in Marriages they are not happy with. National statistics don’t exist on divorce in India, but some local records do show a rise. Still, some experts say the divorce rate in India continues to be artificially low, because...

This month, two women’s stories, told courageously, helped to underline the reality of domestic violence in India. Nita Bhalla, a journalist, wrote for the BBC about being physically assaulted by her partner. Meena Kandasamy, a poet and writer on social issues, wrote movingly in Outlook, a national newsmagazine, of surviving a violent Marriage: “My skin has seen enough hurt to tell its own story.” Both Ms. Kandasamy and Ms. Bhalla are,...

  For women, the NREGA would bring important social gains   Not being an expert on the subject and too lazy to read all the fine print, I do not know the exact allocations under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act this year. But I gather the money has been cut down, largely because the sums allocated last year were not fully used by most states. Maybe there were other considerations...