Efforts to get rights and resources for single women have been gaining ground in India. Single women's organizations have formed in eight of the country's 28 states, and advocates are now looking to build political power at the national level.
India has one of the worst maternal death rates in the world and the country's improvement targets are way off-track. Health advocates say legal interventions can pick up the pace and save women from easily preventable death.
Amid the growing influence of fundamentalism around the world, Asian researchers say women in almost any affected religion-Christian, Muslim or Hindu-pay the price in eroded health and safety.
In certain rural villages in India it is traditional for low-income families to send daughters into prostitution. Some girls are being protected from that dangerous fate in the age of HIV-AIDS, but far more are falling into brothels' economic grip.
Many Indian women offer their hair to deities in Hindu temples in a show of respect and gratitude. Few realize the offerings can wind up in a lucrative export market serving China and Hollywood.
India's national development policy envisions a better life for the people displaced by major infrastructure projects. Critics, however, say a haphazard approach to the projects has worsened the lot of many people, women in particular.
Debate about the cultural underpinnings of domestic violence in India is being stirred by a study that found a woman's risk of being beaten, kicked or hit rises with her level of education.
An Australian woman is challenging a 140-year-old law that allows judges to reduce a widow's compensation claim upon the death of her husband if she appears likely to remarry.
The hours are long, the wages are low and the conditions hazardous, yet Bangladeshi women are finding their garment industry wages provide them visibility and even authority in a society that once ignored them.
In one Indian community, 12-year-old girls are forced into prostitution, driven by the economic needs of their families and the pressure of religious legend. Human rights officials are trying to end the practice, but red tape slows their efforts.