Walk into almost any government school in India and you will likely find a toilet block for girls. On paper, the progress is real: the government’s own school-records system, the Unified District Information System for Education, (UDISE+) 2024–25 data, which tracks every recognized school in the country, reports that 97.3% of schools have gir...

In Kerala, a state renowned for its robust public healthcare system, a storm is brewing. At the heart of this unrest are the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) workers—often overlooked yet essential healthcare providers who serve as the first point of contact for many. These dedicated workers raise awareness, deliver critical services ...

Imagine starting your period for the first time, completely unprepared and alone. Sadly, this is the reality for nearly half of all girls in India due to a pervasive culture of silence surrounding menstruation. Menstrual health is a critical issue often neglected in public discourse, and unfortunately, it’s not a priority in the current politic...

In emergencies, women and girls are often at particular risk. Response agencies have recorded this pattern during disasters such as the 2015 Nepal earthquake, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war, the 2022 floods in Pakistan, and now the Turkey-Syria earthquake. According to the UN Refugee agency, UNHCR’s latest data released in mid-2022, 1...