-BBC Not so long ago, Birubala Rabha believed witches existed. Assam: Growing up, neighbours often told her about evil women, or daini (witches) skulking in the village. Ms Rabha was six when her father died, forcing her to drop out of school to help her mother, a farm worker in India's north-eastern Assam state. She was 15 when she got married to a farmer. Ms Rabha mostly stayed at home, weaving and looking after their...

-The Indian Express A new initiative attempts to economically empower villagers living near Kanha National Park, and protect its green cover and wildlife. The Kanha–Pench forest corridor is rich in biodiversity and home to a large concentration of tigers, leopards, gaurs, barasingha, and cheetal. But with the population of the villages increasing and land holdings shrinking, conservation efforts were paramount. If the needs of the villagers for improved livelihoods are not...

-TheBetterIndia.com/ women's Feature Service Maharashtra: Many women in Mokhada tehsil of Maharashtra have donned the role of social workers and they are visiting one village after the other, silently campaigning for their rightful share of water. As one starts trekking the mountainous countryside with Sangeeta, Heera, Savita, Gangu and Pushpa, one can clearly discern the heady union of life and a strong sense of purpose among these energetic adivasi (tribal) women. For...

-BBC More than 20,000 housewives took their lives in India in 2014. This was the year when 5,650 farmers killed themselves in the country. So the number of suicides by housewives was over 250% more than the farmers. They also comprised 47% of the total female victims. Yet the high number of homemakers killing themselves doesn't make front page news in the way farmer suicides do, year after year. In fact, more than 20,000 housewives...

-Livemint.com/ Bloomberg Corruption being rife though, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has boosted agricultural wages and rural-labour market Over the last 10 years in India, perhaps no other law has sparked such sustained debate as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), universally known as ‘Narega.’ Passed by the previous Congress government in February 2006 and upheld by the Narendra Modi administration, it’s given rise to the...