Menarche is an important milestone in the life of a girl which signifies the onset of fertility in a woman. To understand the health consequences and importance of menstrual hygiene practices among adolescent girls, it is important to study the current practices about the same so that future interventions can be planned accordingly.

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Zika is, and will continue to be, a disease of the urban poor. Slum-defining characteristics—poor water and sanitation infrastructure, crowding, and poor structural quality of housing—offer ample opportunities for mosquitoes to breed and spread the Zika virus. It was recently estimated that 1.6 million childbearing women and 93 million people will be infected in the Americas’ first epidemic wave. From this reservoir of infections, the world is witnessing the largest epidemic ever of a congenital complication—microcephaly.

The causes, conditions and consequences of poor water access in Bombay Hotel locality, a predominantly Muslim informal settlement located in Ahmedabad’s southern periphery, are studied through the lens of urban violence and conflict. This is done by tracing the dynamics of urban planning and governance that have produced two interlinked types of infrastructural violence in the locality—municipal water denial and violent articulations of infrastructure by informal water providers—and the experiences of everyday conflict and violence that emerge in residents’ lives as a consequence.

The Ethiopian approach to planning and development is a unique and bold departure from the cautious and incremental approach that has dominated the rhetoric and practice of development in the cities and regions of the third world since the rise and mainstreaming of participatory, small-scale and upgradation-based development.

The immediate impact of and reaction to demonetisation are documented and examined through a survey of around 200 families living in 28 slum or lower-income neighbourhoods in Mumbai in early December 2016. A drop in family income is recorded with wide variation across different groups and occupation types. There is also a drop in consumption as well as changes in the families’ savings in November. Finally, we find that the majority of respondents view the policy overall as positive, including the majority of those who experienced some loss of income in November.