News stories by Nitin Jugran Bahuguna

NEW DELHI, Aug 07 (IPS) - Mr. Jayakumar (73), a philanthropic bachelor hailing from a prosperous industrial family in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, decided at the age of 70 that it was time to settle down.

India has been ranked the fourth most dangerous country in the world for women, but the widespread practice of selectively aborting female foetuses may make it the most hostile to the female gender.

High up in the Himalayan mountains, 13-year-old Mohammad Junaid helps his family collect fresh fodder for their buffaloes, all the while dreaming of the day he could once again play cricket.

When their sugarcane crops failed to deliver a good yield three years ago, Kantabai Chavan and her husband Baban decided to try a new strategy.

With her arms loaded with flowers and leaves, Mohini Indrawan negotiates the dusty village track leading up to her house in this northern Indian state, pausing now and then to exchange pleasantries with a passing acquaintance. Her spending a few hours away from home each day was once labelled 'immoral', but Indrawan is now hailed as a role model for other women.

Meruga Padma, 33, and her husband Veeramallu, 40, can still remember when cotton farmers here in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh were in such dire straits that many were soon thrown into depression. Some of the farmers, in fact, were eventually driven to taking their own lives.

Women in Uttarkashi district of the hill state of Uttarakhand in India, traditionally sidelined from the developmental processes, are forming their own cooperative and producing processed food items, giving big multinational brands a run for their money in local markets.

Rajbala, 40, learned in the cruelest way possible that poverty exacts an exorbitant price, especially if one is pursuing justice.

It has been more than eight years since the January 2001 earthquake struck the Indian state of Gujarat, but Hansa Rathore still cannot quite shake off memories of that not too distant past — all because it left her a widow.

When Kusum Lata, 40, decided to run for election in her village, she felt frightened. 'I was extremely nervous as everything was new to me,' says the mother of four. But the support of her family and friends inspired her.