A village girl in Burdwan stormed out of her wedding venue today though the rituals had been completed and, rubbing off the sindoor on her head, said she did not accept the Marriage because the groom’s family was demanding a huge dowry. The boy, owner of a car rental agency, was garlanded with shoes by angry villagers and was being kept confined at a local temple along with his sister and...

ON February 12, Meham town in Rohtak district, Haryana, saw a citizens’ convention that was unusual in more than one sense. First, it was being held from the ramparts of the Meham Chaubisi Chabootara, a platform reserved for members of the Meham panchayat (a conglomeration of 24 villages, better known as the Meham Chaubisi). Second, the meeting was not dominated by any one caste. Third, it was a congregation of...

Killed, aborted or neglected, at least 100m girls have disappeared—and the number is rising IMAGINE you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family. But traditional mores hold sway around you, most important in the preference for sons over daughters. Perhaps hard physical labour is still...

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is supporting a new anti-child Marriage movement in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, where nearly half of all girls become child brides and one-third become teenage mothers even though the legal Marriage age is 18. “We need to have a zero-tolerance policy towards child Marriage, so that every child, boy and girl, has the opportunity to live their childhood and gain an...

NAGPUR: Farmers in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region are hoping for a Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) development package in Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's budget, only two days away. According to the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), in view of the neglect faced by the region since independence, it was high time the central government looks at Vidarbha seriously and announces a hefty development package. "The Maharashtra government has spent over...