NEW DELHI (Economic Times): Voicing concern over India being home to the largest number of illiterates in the world, President Pratibha Devisingh Patil on Saturday urged that women's literacy and education be treated as ""priority"" for the beneficial effect to be felt by society.

Speaking at the International Literacy Day Celebration here in the capital, Patil said: ""India is home to the world's largest number of illiterates and this is a matter of great concern. India accounts for 20 percent of the world's out-of-school children and 35 percent adult illiterates.
@H=Women beheaded for “immoral activities”
@T=BANNU (Pakistan Dawn) -- Suspected militants have beheaded two women they accused of indulging in immoral activities. The bodies of the women, who had been kidnapped a day earlier by armed people, were found in the Baran Dam area in the troubled Frontier Region of Bannu on Friday.
Witnesses said a note in Pashto was found near the bodies, warning that “women involved in immoral activities will meet the same fate.” A local police official told Dawn it had not been confirmed that the women, Ms Mena, 45, and Ms Malki, 40, were involved in any immoral activity. Ms Basri, a relative of the women, has lodged an FIR with the Bannu Cantonment police.
@H=Sleep-deprived women at hypertension risk
@T=WARWICK, England (UPI) -- Researchers in Britain warn sleep-deprived women are at greater risk than men for developing high blood pressure, or hypertension.
The study, published in the journal Hypertension, revealed women who slept five hours or less were twice as likely to suffer from hypertension as women who slept seven hours or more a night. There was no difference between those men sleeping less than five hours and those sleeping seven hours or more.

@H=Obama asks women to risk backing him
@T=SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, hoping to make inroads with women voters, urged an overwhelmingly female audience on Friday to risk supporting him instead of someone ""who will deliver competently more of the same.""
Obama never mentioned by name Hillary Rodham Clinton, his chief rival for the party's nomination, but he offered several shots at the New York senator's claim that she is the only candidate with the experience to lead the nation effectively.