Despite great advances in infrastructure, the health and social challenges faced by women below poverty line in hills are rampant. We are still grappling with providing adequate basic amenities in the form of water supply, sanitation, nutrition and health services to this group. Add to it the burden of illiteracy, lack of health awareness, large family size, poor hygiene, malnutrition, gender inequality and backward thinking. One can now imagine the plight of a woman belonging to this background.

She is malnourished, often not sent to school, eats her brothers, leftovers, is married off early, has frequent childbirths unattended by birth attendant, has limited access to health facilities, hardly ever voices her woes and worries in this male dominated world and ...