Once associated with manual scavenging, the colour ‘blue’ presently symbolises women’s empowerment in Rajasthan, where those once abhorred by society now make food items

To sensitise rural communities on government health schemes and help them avail and monitor the services in Jharkhand, songs set to music drive home the points effectively, says Ajitha Menon  

It is destination Nepal for the service-minded and those having loved ones in the quake-hit nation. People from various walks of life have arrived to save, help and heal, says Shweta Sharma

By rehabilitating wayward children, helping them turn a new leaf, the Hazrat Nizamuddin police station has set an example for the rest of the country. Rajnish Singh reports on Operation Khoj

An ‘impatient optimist’, Melinda Gates sees women’s health improving but is concerned over ‘many women and girls who are falling through the cracks, especially in the world’s poorest places’

A scheme to sterilize monkeys is helping jobless youth make some money in Himachal Pradesh, whose help has been sought by five states to keep simian numbers under control, says Vishal Gulati

With assistance from an NGO that supplied the bricks and materials, women of a remote hamlet in the Sundarbans region of West Bengal have built a road through their village, says Saadia Azim  

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla are behind an auto rickshaw race that will be held in November between Khajuraho to Kipling Camp in Madhya Pradesh to raise funds for conserving elephants

Tribal children in Rajasthan’s Udaipur district go to school against all odds. Besides wild animals, flash streams and a host of other impediments, they make long treks. Dilnaz Boga tells us how the people are being inspired not to give up

‘Khabar Lahariya’ is a weekly newspaper that sensitises not just its 80,000 readers on gender issues, it has changed the lives of its women journalists with rural mooring, says Mehru Jaffer 

Among conservative Muslim women, adolescent girls create awareness on family planning, child marriage, nutrition, sanitation, thanks to Bihar Voluntary Health Association, says Ajitha Menon

An NGO that takes used clothes, household goods and other essential items from cities to villages, Goonj has also inspired many to ditch careers and turn social workers, says Rahul Vaishnavi

Lives of several women in Bihar’s Madhubani district have undergone a sea change, making them independent and powerful, thanks to the Poorest Area Civil Societies Programme, says Alka Pande

The prevalence of child marriages in Rajasthan not just makes a mockery of the law but also causes deep psychological wounds in the minds of those forced to enter wedlock, says Gaurav Sharma

Though women subjected to sexual harassment at workplace can seek justice, lack of social and family support enables men to get away with the crime. Rakhi Ghosh analyses the gamut of issues