Vatican City: Pope Francis, who passed away on Monday at the age of 88, will be remembered for taking unprecedented steps to elevate women within the Vatican hierarchy. Yet, his papacy also drew criticism from advocates who felt he fell short of enacting deeper reforms regarding women's roles in the broader Catholic Church. Even from a hospital bed in February 2025 while battling double pneumonia, Francis continued to break new ground by appointing Sister Raffaella Petrini to a role comparable to the governor of Vatican City—the first time a woman had held such authority in the papal enclave. Only weeks earlier, he had named Sister Simona Brambilla as the head of a major Vatican department, making her...

It's just a tale of a ‘girl’… Well, what a jolly little tale this is! Picture this: a wee lass born in the rather fancy-sounding "princely state of Tripura" (sounds like something from a fairy tale, doesn't it?). Until the ripe old age of four, she was living the dream, surrounded by more relatives than you could shake a stick at - pishis, kakus, thakumas, jethus and whatnot. A proper family circus, if you ask me! Her father, a rather important chap at the State Bank of India, suddenly gets shipped off to West Bengal - absolutely chuffed, he was! So off they pop to Kolkata, our little protagonist, her parents, and sister in tow. Talk about...