From the young Bollywood star Jiah Khan to Hollywood’s heartthrob Marilyn Monroe, depression has destroyed several women. It is like a cancer that slowly and steadily kills one’s love for life and may even lead to suicide. The World Health Organization estimates that the depressive trend is two to three times more in women than in men. Every year, more than 350 million people around the world die of depression. Surprisingly, India tops the list for having the maximum number of depressed people in the world. Debarati Mukherjee speaks to psychologist Mandira Khandve who offers solutions to help Womentalkonline readers to lead a depression-free life.

Copyright: Press Information Bureau, India

Uttarakhand, India’s northern state has suffered severe damages following a flood of cataclysmic proportions. According to unofficial sources, nearly 1,000 people have died while several remain buried under debris and landslides.  The Uttarakhand Himalayas are home to Hindu and Sikh pilgrimage sites and several of those who died were on their way to seek blessings from the gods. But amid the news of massive loss and destruction of property and human lives, there are some heart-rending tales of heroism.

A Dalit group in Karnataka offers prayers to the local goddess Yellamma

Imagine a society where some members are not allowed to speak to others, except from a distance of 100 meters, where generations of these ‘untouchables’ are banished to the village’s outskirts because they clean out the garbage and who are physically beaten up if they do not follow their community’s norms. If you took a trip to Tumkur in southern India about 30 years ago, you would have seen this happening with your very eyes.

Do men ever try to look at themselves as ‘men?’ A new film by Indian journalist and filmmaker Vivek Asri tries to portray the struggles of an Indian man trying to come to terms with the fact that he is infertile and cannot sire a child. How does such a man deal with the Indian stereotype of a macho, virile male and what does his wife have to go through in the process? Vivek speaks to Women Talk Online about the recurring themes of gender identity and of the sense of masculine loss in his film, “Every silence, another doubt.”

Living as a woman: does it have to be so tough all the time?

Last year, a woman was raped in a moving car in Kolkata. She was coming out of a five-star hotel on Kolkata’s posh Park Street when five young boys kidnapped her and later raped her. The victim, a mother of two daughters, did not find any compassion with the police in Kolkata. Today, she is working with an NGO which provides help for traumatized women. She spoke to DW correspondent Prabhakar Mani about her struggle to come to terms with her life.

What does an Indian woman do when her husband leaves her and her family throws her out of the house? Komal Ganatra decided to make a life for herself and was very succesful at it. Her story of suffering and success created quite a storm in the Indian media. Women Talk Online blogger Norris Pritam spoke to her.

According to the latest figures released by the Indian Home Ministry, out of the 15,85,117 personnel working in state police forces, only 84,479 or just 5.33% are women.  Besides there are only 499 all-women police stations out of a total of 15,000 stations in the country. The figures are absurd and call for an analysis. Is meagre representation of women in the forces, leading to a rise in crimes against women?