-The Telegraph Most poor families in Jharkhand may not have heard of the word “bank”. But they are banking on a better future for their daughters, thanks to the ubiquitous village post office, which they are now embracing to reap the benefits of a thoughtful government scheme. Over 2,000 saving accounts have been opened at different post offices across districts in just one month to tap the Mukhyamantri Ladli Laxmi Yojana that...

Almost half the women born in India are married off before they turn 18, while 18 per cent of them are below 15, according to a Unicef report that shows legal and other measures have done little to curb child marriage. Among those married, 22 per cent became mothers before they got the right to vote. The figures are part of a report brought out by the organisation on the State of...

The water used to cool the Rawatbhata reactor was pumped back into Chambal river. Before and during my pregnancy, I drank the tap water supplied to us from the same river. I didn't go even so far as to boil this water. Nothing went wrong. Kudankulam has been in the news and how! Little did I imagine in 2002 that this remote area of southern Tamil Nadu where there are more...

-WFS   Pamela Philipose meets three tribal women who changed the course of their lives through sheer grit and determination, despite their circumstances Kaushal Markam’s experiences are not unusual. When she managed to get a job card entitling her to work on one of the government-run worksites under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), she was delighted.  Money was always in short supply, and this 35-year-old Baiga tribal woman of Dongaria...

115 women will be attending seminar in Paris   Usha Chomar and Guddi Athwal would not have even dreamed of a foreign sojourn let alone speaking at an international forum in Paris on the issue of health problems that manual scavengers have had to face. Both Usha and Guddi have put their past behind them and are among the 115 manual scavengers of the Alwar District of Rajasthan who have since been rehabilitated....