Nearly 65% of adults in the Arab region remain excluded from formal financial systems, according to a new report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). The Annual SDG Review 2025 paints a sobering picture of persistent financial exclusion that is undermining the region’s ability …
Centre for Health Education, Training and Nutrition Awareness Lilavatiben, Lalbhais Bungalow Civil Campus Road, Shahi Bagh Ahmedabad 380 004 Women's Health Forum 839, 23rd Main 10th Cross J P Nagar 2nd Phase Bangalore 644 963 Indira Kapoor Family Welfare Training and Research Centre 332 Sardar V P Road Bombay 400 …
MAY 30, 1993, was a historic day in West Bengal. For the first time, voting was held for a panchayat system that endowed villagers with the right to set their own priorities for development. And more remarkable, one-third of the panchayat seats were reserved for women. But the more things …
The 1992 amendment to the West Bengal Panchayat Act of 1973 did two things: It empowered villagers to choose their path of development and guaranteed representation for women. Previously, gram sabhas existed only in name and the people did not have any democratic decision-making powers. Priorities -- whether electricity or …
THE 73RD Constitution Amendment, yet to be ratified by the requisite number of state governments, holds within it the potential for a passive revolution in the Indian countryside. For not only does it constitutionalise a third level of governance in the country, namely the panchayats, it also reserves one-third of …
IN MANIPUR, drinking is more than being merely dangerous to one's health. It can be utterly embarrassing because a man caught drinking there is likely to be stripped, have his face blackened, be paraded seated on a donkey and then handed over to the police for prosecution. Nupi Lan, the …
THE DRIVE against liquor in Kaithal district in Haryana reached its most ludicrous in March this year when the Kamoda village panchayat resolved to reopen the village's liquor vend in the village. Says panchayat member Baju Ram, "The decision was taken because liquor was still easily available and there was …
CHADUVU Velugu (Light of Knowledge), an adult literacy primer in Andhra Pradesh, contains a lesson entitled Adavallu Ekamaithe (If Women Unite). The lesson depicts the benefits of literacy and tells the story of how the Dubagunta women won their battle against alcoholism. Adavallu Ekamaithe tells how the men of Dubagunta …
PERHAPS one of the worst fears a woman harbours is that of getting breast cancer, a justifiable fear for, in USA alone, 46,000 women die every year of breast cancer -- and, this rate is increasing by 1 per cent annually. Despite the vast amounts of time and money pumped …
AT THE National Film Festival this year, the winner of the award for the best feature film on family welfare was a 150-minute, tear-jerker starring Aparna Sen. Directed by Prabhat Roy with gusto, the film has enough dramatic touches to guarantee box office popularity. Shwet Paatharer Thala tells the story …
"NO WOMAN ever had to hug a tree to protect it," says Chandi Prasad Bhatt, the founder of Chipko. "It was not necessary to do so, for the mere threat was enough." The concept of hugging a tree to defend it was so powerful, it brought in a new consciousness …
WHEN GAURA Devi of Reni village died on July 4, 1991, she must have been disillusioned. Two decades earlier, she inspired a group of women to chase away employees of a forest contractor -- and this act of courage and spontaneous defiance was hailed by the media as the start …
WOMEN were involved in popular agitations in Uttarakhand long before Chipko, but it is Chipko that produced courageous women who even dared to take on the state. In the Vyali forest agitation in Uttarkashi in 1974, women acted as messengers and lookouts because the men were under police surveillance. Some, …
IN JANUARY 1978, about 300 villagers from Almora district got together under the aegis of the Parvatiya Van Bachao Andolan and camped for 39 days in the Chanchridhar forests near Dwarahat. Bipin Tripathi, the block pramukh (chief) of Dwarahat, explained why: "We did not want Kashmiri Lal, the contractor of …
1973 • Chipko is born when villagers of Mandal, near Gopeshwar, led by Chandi Prasad Bhatt and the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Mandal, stop contractors of an Allahabad-based sports goods company, Symonds, from felling 14 ash trees on April 24. • In December, villagers again stop Symonds agents at the Phata-Rampur …
THOUGH Haryana is an agriculturally developed state, its Rewari district is poor and handicapped by lack of drinking water, sharp gander inequality and educational backwardness. Rewari averages 65 cm of rain annually, not enough for efficient fuming and its salinity is such that cultivating the undulating stretches of the Arivall! …
IN DAYS long gone, the bearer of bad tidings was usually put to death unceremoniously. In today's more civilised times, we in the Third World prefer to vilify such messengers as biased agents of neo-imperialists, who never hesitate to point out the mote in our eyes while remaining blissfully oblivious …
THE GROWTH of the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) is an inspiring story of an unique organisation combining within its ambit labour unions, workers' cooperatives, and a bank. Its members are women working in the "informal" sector, such as ragpickers, vendors and hawkers, bidi rollers and quiltmakers. Kalima Rose is …
SALINE and degraded soils, inadequate water, poor quality seeds and the lack of means to own land -- these are the main problems that Indian peasant women face. And this conclusion was arrived at not by agrarian economists or bureaucrats, but by peasant women from the villages of north India. …
A NEW CONDOM for women that gives them greater sexual freedom has been approved for sale in some European countries (Outlook Vol 10, No 2). The condom consists of a loose-fitting, polyurethane sheath with flexible rings at both ends. The smaller ring at the closed end is inserted into the …
THE WOMEN'S Feature Service (WFS) is a news service that deals not just with equal rights for women, but with "development from a progressive, women's, or gender, perspective." It has transcended the Leftist tendency to see women as a force to be incorporated and led and instead stressed women's innovation, …
