-The Hindu   Channai: The population grew by 97.4 lakh persons, including 47.4 lakh males and over 50 lakh females, between 2001 and 2011. A rapidly urbanising Tamil Nadu faces significant social and economic challenges, going by indicators in the 2011 census abstract report released here on Friday. The ratio of rural to urban population has nearly reached parity and stands, in percentage terms, at 51.6 in villages and 48.4 in cities. Tamil Nadu's...

-The Hindustan Times Indore: At a time when crime against women is on the rise and patriarchal mindset spurs people towards honour killing, the opium-cultivating village of Guradia Narsinghpur in western Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur district has heralded a revolution of sorts. Located in a district notorious for girl child trafficking, Guradia Narsinghpur village under Gatod tehsil has adopted family planning vigorously. Most families do not have more than two children even if...

-The Hindu   With her passing, Indian feminism has lost one of its earliest icons Three years ago, almost to the day, when we launched Vina Mazumdar's memoir, Memories of a Rolling Stone, the room at the Habitat Centre in Delhi was packed to overflowing. Resplendent in her beautiful silk, Vinadi, as she was known to everyone around her, smiled her way through the evening as bureaucrats, academics, politicians, educationists, feminists and others...

-The Times of India In banding together to form a vigilante group to tackle the menace of alcoholism, the women of Banauli village in Bihar's Rohtas district have once again highlighted women power. The Durga Vahini isn't afraid to use brooms and sticks to set their abusive husbands straight. The group's activities - which have earned it the support of the local administration - are reminiscent of the Gulabi Gang...

-The Hindu Vina Mazumdar, doyenne of the Indian women's movement, architect of the epochal Report of the Committee on the Status of women in India in post independent India, passed away in a central Delhi hospital on May 30 after a brief illness. In the introduction to her memoirs published by Zubaan in 2010, she described herself as a "women's activist", a "feminist,", a "trouble-maker", but the one she liked best was...