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Editorial Section

by Madhu Todi

“I feel ashamed, I hate my life, I hate everything, why should it be me, why can’t I have my own children just like every other normal woman, why should I face such humiliation from people, why should my life be filed with hopelessness”, recounted Mrs. Karki (not her real name). Mrs.Karki has been married for 15 years without a child the environment where she lived scorns her but the one that is m

Story of the Month

Kumari: a Life from a Goddess to a Human

by Astitwa Team

Imagine your life when you are being treated as an extraordinary person, being worshipped as incarnation of a goddess and people are gathering in thousands and thousands just to catch a glimpse of you! You become the lucky charm for people and your mood decides if they will prosper or decline. You have your caretakers to constantly watch for your needs. You never have to set your feet on the ground for there is a grandiose chariot waiting for you outside. You get everything you wish for, everything! And then suddenly, one day, everything you had is snatched away from you. There is no chariot and no crowd for you now. You are no longer the same extraordinary person that you were moments before. Imagine the bruising when you tumble back to earth. All that remains with you is the memory of the past which you can cherish life long, and what lies ahead is not just a long life but the never ending struggle to live it through as an ordinary person. This is the fate of so many young Shakya girls in Nepal where the tradition of worshiping a deified young girl as the incarnation of Taleju Bhaw

Relationship

Live In relationship

by Angela Upreti

What if law remains blind? A cliché, isn’t it? But, in case of a live-in relationship in Nepal, this cliché foreshadows prospects and hopes of many women. The foremost thing one must understand is that our law doesn’t recognize a live-in relation, paralleling to orthodox age old view that if a man and a woman live together, they must be married. In case of marriage, a woman is destined to get comp

Women Rights

Poverty Alleviation Agenda and Women Rights on Land

by Subhash Chandra Kattel

Karl Marx, one of the most influential philosophers, economists, sociologists, historians, journalists, and revolutionary socialists of 19th century, divided the people into two categories: rich and poor. The credit of literal explanation of these divisions by comparing it with the scale of law and justice, in a language that is understandable by world's poor people, goes to Marx. This division dr

Her Point of View

Virginity: Is it only for women?

by Sunada Khadka

It is the orthodoxy of the human mind to have compared virginity with virtue.- Voltaire Our society considers virginity of a “woman” as a must virtue and thus reckons it as the only basis with which a girl can be classified as a pure one. A woman becomes a “slut”, a “whore” in the eyes of a society if she is found to be not-a-virgin before she is married. But if there is a man who sleeps around wi

His Point of View

Is Prostitution Worth Legalizing in Nepal?

by Mohan Nepali

Prostitution is one of oldest human practices in the world. However, most of the nations have not provided it a legal status. They hesitate to recognize it as one of the legalized professions. There definitely are several serious reasons behind that. At the same time, so many nations (e.g. Thailand, the Netherlands) have legalized it as a tax paying industry. Arguments for and against the legaliza

I Love My Life

White Discharge

by Web and other rsources

Do you know the difference between normal vaginal discharge and abnormal vaginal discharge? Did you know that having a vaginal discharge is normal? Here we have tried to gather as much information about various types of vaginal discharges so that you’ll know when you have an abnormal vaginal discharge. Vaginal discharge is the result of secretions produced from small glands in the lining of the va