As a player and a coach, Silvia Neid won all there is to win in women’s football. But the former German international thinks the appointment of a female coach in the Bundesliga is as far away as ever.

Eight-times European Champions and two-times World Champions: the fairytale of the German Women’s national team. Pioneer Anne Trabant, current international player Dzsenifer Marozsán and U17 European Champion Melissa Kössler tell us about their passion for the sport that was forbidden for women until 1970.

Bandana Rana, President of the Nepali non government organisation, Saathi, has reached out to footballers in the Himalayan nation in a bid to involve them in the struggle for gender justice. (Credit: Julie Lunde Lillesæter\PRIO

Talking about ‘real men’ and helping young men to discover their potential to contribute to a better societ is a challenge so Bandana Rana has roped in Nepal’s men in the struggle for gender justice. Having collaborated with the All Nepal Football Association, Rana, who is President of the Nepali non- government organisation, Saathi, has shown how footballers from around 500 clubs in the Himalayan nation can learn skills for societal team building. In a one-on-one with Anita Katyal she elaborateson  her work in Nepal and shares her experiences.

The all-girl football team

They started off as a secret sports club. What brought them together was their shared love for football, a game they couldn’t dream of playing because of their conservative family backgrounds.  After all, how could young girls, who weren’t even allowed to step out of their homes without the hijab (veil), run around kicking ball in an open field?

Our blogger Beenish Javed (second from the right) poses with the team

Who would have thought that the poorest of poor children, living on streets and slums of Karachi, would become celebrities in Pakistan.

A Pakistani TV programme gives away orphaned babies, a team of young women from India take the third place in a football competition in Spain and violence against civilians has increased in Afghanistan, the main targets being women and children. Read on to know which South Asian women’s themes made it to the headlines in the last few days.

Football fan Julia Probst has the German football coach Joachim Loew in a tizzy. 30-year-old Probst has a hearing impairment and has taken to lip-reading Loew’s outbursts on the football field and tweeting them to fans on Twitter.