All that glitters...

As far as token gestures go, this is one of a kind. A group of 30 rural women from Bharatpur district of Rajasthan were in New Delhi this week to get ? what the government says ? a rare exposure to the latest advances in the agricultural sector, new trends in farm technology and the progress made in the national Capital. The special educational tour had been organised at the behest of the state medical and health minister, Digambar Singh. The Lupin Human Welfare Research Foundation, which has created self-employment opportunities to benefit nearly 16,000 women in Bharatpur district, had organised the trip with the hope that it would help the women recognise their own potential for constructive work and take advantage of the resources available. The women were also shown some of the pomp and glitter of the big city, something that they had never seen before, and taken to places such as the Rashtrapati Bhavan and Dilli Haat. Would that it were enough to change their lot!

Silence!

Husbands are such a nuisance. They hog the family computer, watch TV at nerve-grating volume clutter up every flat surface with their hobbies and mess up a room with their very presence. Now, a Japanese company thinks it has found the solution: lock up the monster in a soundproof wooden box. Yamaha has come up with the Avitecs MyRoom, a 2.5sqm den that can stand in the corner of the average-sized lounge and perform ? albeit on a cramped scale ? the functions of a study, cinema and garden shed. The noisiest of activities is inaudible to the outside world, and even if the inside is a tip, the mess is scarcely visible through the thin strip of frosted glass.

Devil woman

The state of Massachusetts, USA, is on a drive to track down unregistered sex offenders, and one of the most wanted persons on the list is Cynthia J. Waters. Waters, who was arrested last week, was wanted for the rape of five children, aged between three and 12. Her offence was so horrific that the last time she was arrested in 1999, prosecutors wanted to lock her up indefinitely. The judge had set her free but she had been giving the police the slip all this while by not registering herself regularly. Reported to be a petite woman, Waters claims that she had only run away to try and turn her life around by becoming a “nail technician”.

Ageist policy

Middle-aged women, and suburban at that. Seems that was reason enough for the bosses at the Philadelphia Inquirer to discriminate against them. Seven female reporters ? who write for a weekly section of the newspaper about Philadelphia’s suburbs, called Neighbors ? have alleged in a lawsuit that they were passed over for promotions because of their age and gender. The women, all over 40, are paid less than other journalists at the paper. They said they had each applied for more prestigious jobs at the Philadelphia Inquirer during a staff re-organisation in 2002, and each was “turned down in favour of a man or a younger woman”.

Ground realities

Why does the educational attainment of Muslim girls continue to remain below average in our country? Why is it that 75 per cent of them are illiterate? Zoya Hasan and Ritu Menon probe the causes behind this in their book Educating Muslim Girls: A Comparison of Five Indian Cities (Women Unlimited, Rs 300), the third in a series that seeks to illustrate the factors influen-cing the schooling of Muslim girls in India. The findings are based on first-hand interviews and reports and they succeed in identifying some key socio-political factors that determine their educational status.

Overheard... that eating hot and spicy food may increase your level of pain during childbirth. An American sexologist says that the find is corroborated by the Indian custom of women being advised not to eat spicy food from three months before their delivery.