Women's Feature Service

Lifting her translucent red tie-and-dye cotton veil, Sunder Devi, 45, dexterously sorts 'moonjh' (Saccharum munja). Nearby her daughter, Kiran, 14, niftily assembles them into brooms.

When Rose speaks, Tamil Nadu stops to listen. Perhaps it is the air of nonchalant confidence that she exudes, or it is her perceptive mind that dissects tangled and tricky issues, making them straight and simple.

So far, over 30 women have been trained as drivers and have licences to drive in the city, of them eight have commercial licences.

But in the distant hinterlands of Odisha, home to a large number of tribal communities, tobacco in various forms continues to be an intrinsic part of life. For instance, smoking, using bhang (tobacco powder) and cleaning one's teeth with gudakhu (a

This musical extravaganza is a weekly event at the Helena Roerich Arts School and College in Naggar, a small settlement, located 1760 m above sea level in the picturesque Kullu valley of Himachal Pradesh. Until a decade ago, this was just another sl