All right, the inspiration for this post arose from a Facebook post from +The Economist on Pope Francis's statements on The Shroud of Turin. "Making sense of a mystery" "Hence, perhaps, the cautious but far from anodyne words of the new pontiff, who draws some unexpected conclusions from the Shroud, almost implying that it does not make any difference whose visage appears on the cloth. "This disfigured face resembles all those faces of men and women marred by a life which does not respect their dignity, by war and violence which afflict the weakest… And yet, at the same time, the face in the Shroud conveys a great peace; this tortured body expresses a sovereign majesty."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2013/03/pope-francis-and-turin-shroud?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/senseofmyster"
Since I read several articles which are attached to the link, I was pleasantly surprised to read
"Mixed fortunes for the daughters of Travancore"
"Modern Kerala is still often upheld as India’s best state for women. It has the country’s highest female literacy rate at 92%, with only four percentage points’ difference between male and female rates. In Rajasthan, a large northern state, only 53% of women are literate: almost 30 percentage points behind their male counterparts. Nationally, only two-thirds of all women can read and write, versus four-fifths of men. Kerala also has India’s lowest rates of maternal mortality as well as a population of 1,084 women per 1,000 men, which makes it the country’s most female state. India’s national population has 940 women per 1,000 men,
as couples selectively abort female fetuses or neglect daughters. Haryana, another northern state, has just 877 baby girls per 1,000 boys. Families there have in recent years started sourcing brides from Kerala."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2013/03/women-kerala
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