Women's Feature Service

Want a dream life partner? Consult the stars. Need to buy property? Only the planets can predict the right time. Studies or career not going according to plan or expectations? A 'jyotisha' (astrologer) can draw up a fool-proof rescue plan.

That's how Sukhdai's tryst with research and development in the field of organic farming began. Within three years, her farm was lush with herbs grown organically and, as luck would have it, around that time the demand for organic products too pic

In one of Srinagar's many bureaucratic offices housed in the Old Civil secretariat building, a queue of women - some elderly, some young - grows longer by the hour.

Of all the women with full-time jobs, it is the mothers, especially those in the private sector, who seem to be the worst-hit.

Singh is indeed a trendsetter - she belongs to the rare species of a trained professional woman naturalist. Being a naturalist - the equivalent of a ranger in Africa - wasn't really a profession till 'Taj Safaris', a private company, set out to t