-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Literacy is still a distant dream for vulnerable young women. Going at the present pace of development, India will take at least another 56 years to achieve female youth literacy. A serious gender imbalance in global education has left over 100 million young women in low and lower middle income countries unable to read a single sentence, and will prevent half of the 31 million girls...

-The Telegraph Even as it is busy trying to resolve other people's conflicts in so many parts of the world, the United Nations has recently created a conflict of its own. It began innocuously enough. The organization has always tried to get consensus around matters on which it is often very difficult to arrive at such consensus. The usual strategy to achieve this is to sufficiently water down the language in its...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court has declined to entertain a plea that women be allowed to medically terminate pregnancy after the 20-week deadline fixed by law as many carry foetuses with abnormalities in the last trimester. A bench of Justices S.J. Mukhopadhyaya and Kurien Joseph declined to pass any order on the plea and instead allowed counsel Divya Jyothi to withdraw the petition with liberty to come out with an...

-The Hindu Hyderabad: The road to motherhood is fraught with risks for women visiting the two government maternity hospitals in the city, says a recent study by women's group ‘Stree Vimukti Sanghatana'. A report detailing the matter was presented to Principal Secretary, Health, L.V. Subramanyam on Monday. The study reveals the appalling conditions prevalent at the teaching hospitals at Petla Burz and Koti, which are frequented by poor pregnant women from Old...

-The Financial Express The Indian success story increasingly looks like a tale of naivety and optimistic complacency. The Indian success story increasingly looks like a tale of naivety and optimistic complacency, with the fantasy of ‘India Shining' obfuscating the reality of widespread deprivation. Despite rapid economic growth during the past decade, millions continue to live in poverty and hunger. The Indian government aims to address abject hunger and malnutrition with the National Food...