-The New Indian Express Women in Chinnaparakudy tribal settlement find a source of livelihood, reports  Nejma Sulaiman IDUKKI: Many tribal hamlets in Idukki still follow the primitive practice of secluding menstruating girls and women for up to a week in special huts called ‘valaimapura’. At the Chinnaparakudy settlement in Adimaly panchayat, however, the ‘menstrual hut’ has been converted into a hub of creativity, one that offers a livelihood for women.  Earlier, like in...

-The Hindu Women on period not allowed to have meals with men, legislators say citing custom Guwahati: A proposed Bill on granting a day’s leave to school and college-going girls and women in jobs was not found worthy of discussion in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly. Congress MLA Ninong Ering had on March 11 brought a private member’s resolution seeking the introduction of a bill granting menstrual leave “as it is very disturbing for...

-IANS In the early days after the quota of women's elected membership -- initially 33 per cent and later raised to 50 per cent in 20 of the 28 states -- was introduced, many women were acting as proxies for their male relative. UNITED NATIONS: Two women sarpanchs have brought to the UN the story of India changing the rural power structure by empowering women through a programme of gender equality that...

-The Hindu An online community is prodding women to adopt eco-friendly methods such as reusable cloth pads and menstrualcups and reverse the reliance on the feminine hygiene product Remember the popular sanitary napkin advertisement that urged menstruating women to “touch the pickle”? While ad campaigns in the 1990s had a role in breaking certain taboos around menstruation, they also pushed a whole generation of adolescents into adopting sanitary napkins. Sanitary waste has...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com Bhubaneswar: Basanti Bhoi cultivates two gardens of betel leaves all by herself at Dhanahara village  in Odisha. A year or two ago, a woman farming betel leaves would have been unthinkable. An age-old tradition barred women from entering betel enclosures. But today women in the district can grow betel leaves and work as labour in a betel garden. It is a social revolution brought about by Radio Kisan, a community radio...