Millions of community health workers, like the famous ASHA workers of India, form the cost-effective backbone of rural health programs around the world but are often unpaid — meaning millions of unpaid or underpaid women…
India’s solar power push delivers an unexpected bonus – empowering rural women
India’s push for solar delivers unexpected gains for women in the country’s rural areas.
Eating last and least: Widening gender hunger gap raises climate alarm
Women typically eat less in Indian households and are often found compromising their share of food to feed others in the family exposing the growing hunger crisis.
“Neither a widow nor a wife”: India’s abandoned brides
Fraudster husbands in India get married and make promises to take their new wives abroad. But once they receive a dowry, they leave the brides behind. Abused and defrauded, these women are trying to put…
India’s top court has expanded abortion rights for unmarried women. We spoke to the lawyer who fought for the change.
A court in India began considering a case that would result in a landmark expansion of abortion access on the other side of the world.
As heat waves sweep South Asia, they take a hidden toll on women
South Asia has endured an unprecedented heat wave, with March seeing the hottest temperatures on record in India. Evidence suggests the heat is landing a cruel double blow on women’s income and health.
Reporter’s Notebook: Indoor air in India can be just as bad as the country’s toxic smog. Was I wrong to be surprised?
India's polluted skylines regularly make international news. But it’s only now coming to light that air quality inside homes, which mainly affects women in the kitchen, can be just as bad.
Air pollution is worsening reproductive health outcomes for women
Even though the evidence is clear, public health experts say that air pollution’s impact on women's health is not getting the attention it needs.
Early puberty cases have surged during covid, doctors say
Doctors, parents and studies are reporting a rise in such cases, with some children getting their periods as young as 8.
India’s investments in early warning systems have unintended benefits for women
Men in fishing communities were mostly expected to reap the benefits after India started investing in early weather warning systems a decade ago. But government data suggests that women got an unforeseen an economic boost…
In rural India, stricken by pandemic, necessity of invention fills in for the state: Reporter’s Notebook
Decades of neglecting rural health infrastructure took its toll and by May 7, the infections and deaths in India were being reported from its villages, a "worrying” trend considering the acute shortage of healthcare providers…
India is building a women-only social safety net
Political parties across India have promised a host of new social programs exclusively for women. Is it politics or progress?
In the Sundarban, climate change has an unlikely effect — on child sex-trafficking
Child trafficking is on the rise in one of the most climate vulnerable places on earth—revealing blind spots in climate policy, experts tell contributor Ritwika Mitra.
Mysterious deaths of mother, daughter lay bare neglect of rural healthcare in India
The deaths of a village elder and her daughter during India's second COVID-19 wave raise important questions about lapses in the Indian government’s pandemic response.
Indians in America Share Stories of Grief, Fear for Those Affected by COVID
Those in the U.S. with ties to India are reckoning with uncertainty and fear for themselves, those immediately around them, and for those loved ones across the world.
Anantnag, Indian-Administered Kashmir: ‘I Have Children And I Fear To Go Near Them’
A hospital worker in Anantnag fears for her health and the safety of her family amid India's COVID crisis.
Pune, Maharashtra: A Haze of Delirium and Rumors of a Medical Hoax
It is 10 p.m. and the city of Pune echoes with the wail of ambulance sirens. Medical staff are losing both patients and hope. A mother and daughter fight to keep their bond.
Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh: ‘Our Supervisors Tell Us Not to Take the Vaccine. They Tell us That the Injection Will Kill Us.’
In India, 90% of sanitation workers lack health insurance, putting them at increased risk if they were to fall ill and lack access to health care.