By Kathambi Kinoti

Source: AWID

The first public wedding between two women in Nepal took place in June 2011 in a town a few kilometres south of the capital Kathmandu. Nepal was constitutionally a Hindu state until 2006 when Parliament amended the constitution to make it secular. The majority of Nepalese are Hindu and the second most prominent religion is Buddhism.

While same-sex marriage is not yet legal in Nepal, the wedding heralded some major changes to the country’s laws that could come to fruition in the upcoming months.  Nepal’s judiciary paved the way for the protection of the rights of LGBTI persons, and its legislature seems set to follow suit.

By Audrey Young

Source: nzherald.co.nz

Pacific leaders have made a commitment to increasing the numbers of woman parliamentarians, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said yesterday.

Many Pacific countries do not have any female MPs, let alone women in positions of leadership.

Source: IPS

KATHMANDU, Sep 7, 2011 (IPS) - Learning a lesson from crop failures attributed to climate change, Nepal’s women farmers are discarding imported hybrid seeds and husbanding hardier local varieties in cooperative seed banks.

"I had a crop failure two years ago," says Shobha Devkota, 32, from Jibjibe village in Rasuwa, a hilly district in central Nepal which is part of the Langtang National Park, a protected area encompassing two more districts, Nuwakot and Sindhupalchowk. 

"The maize was attacked by pests, the paddy had no grain and the soil grew hard. I had a tough time trying to feed my three daughters and sending them to school."