Her friends in the literary world and her own kin have welcomed the move, as they feel no one has the right to question her freedom to choose a religion of her liking.But more than her decision to embrace Islam it’s, her public statements in the wake of her conversion that have generated controversy.Referring to her own writings, in which she claimed to be the Radha of Krishna, she said even now Krishna was with her. "I am converting Krishna into Allah and making him a prophet after naming him Mohammed. If you go to Guruvayur, you will not see Krishna there. He is with me. I have renamed him Mohammed", she told a private TV channel.

In a dramatic twist Madhavikutty, widow of RBI Executive Director Madhava Das, revealed in a TV interview that she was planning to marry, though she did not disclose who the groom was. There are rumours that she is in love with a Muslim youth. A Malayalam newspaper, came out with a report that she converted to Islam to marry a Muslim League leader and that the date of marriage would be announced after the completion of conversion rites at the Palayam mosque at Thiruvananthapuram.

Sharply reacting to her remarks on Krishna, Vishwa Hindu Parishad state organising secretary Kummanam Rajeshekharan said her statement "will hurt the feelings of crores of Guruvayrappan devotees. She should not have downsized her peers while stepping out of the home where she grew up for more than 60 years," he said while affirming her individual freedom to join any faith.

While many people are curious to know what inspired her to don the purdah, walls in Malappuram are reportedly filled with posters, allegedly pasted by Hindu extremists, threatening her with death.An indication of what is in store for her was the last minute cancellation of the scheduled screening of a documentary on her life, "Malayalathinte Madhavikutty", at Punnayurkulam, her native village, following tension between rival sections.

Well-wishers have asked her not to venture out of her home for at least a week, but she has turned down offers of police protection. On the other hand, her announcement has enthused the Muslim community in the state, with many Imams and other leaders calling on her and Muslim women crowding to extend greetings to Amiyoppa, as Madhavikutty is fondly known.

In a gesture of solidarity, popular cine actor Cochin Haneefa has invited her to dinner. She made the surprise announcement while inaugurating a literary seminar at Kochi. Disbelieving the utterance from a writer known for her rhetorics and controversies, mediamen crowded her home only to see her sitting in purdah. Daughter of the late V.M. Nair, a former Managing Editor of Mathrubhumi daily, and Nalappat Balamani Amma, celebrated Malayalam poetess, Madhavikutty said she had been thinking of conversion to Islam for over 27 years. "I have no one. I am an orphan. Islam is a religion of love, the religion of forgiveness. It gives protection to women and I need protection," she said.

Mother of three sons, Madhavikutty said she felt that Islam would fetch her much needed solace.The well-known writer who dared to lay bare the hypocritical social life of Kerala and made sensitive issues of human love and sensuality the topics of her works, is no stranger to controversies.

Despite taking strides in the field of child care India still has a very high mortality rate among children under the age of five years.

In its State of the World’s Children 2000 report, the UNICEF has said although India has shown improvement over the last years, it was still having a mortality rate of 105 per 1000, ranking it 49 out of 191 countries. With the rating in the inverse order, India has improved from its earlier ranking of 45, the UNICEF said in its report which was globally launched in Berlin, New Delhi, and other world capitals.

Comparing the mortality rate of previous years the report pointed out that in 1990 India had a U5MR of 131. China has been ranked 79, with a U5MR of 47. Pakistan is ranked 33, with a U5MR of 136. Other South Asian countries such as, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan are ranked 137, 56, 51, 48 and 41 respectively. ‘Topping’ the table are Japan, Norway and Sweden, all ranked 189, with an U5MR of four.

Talking to reporters at the national media release of the report, Alan Court the UNICEF representative in India said, "the report describes India as one of the many countries that have begun the tasks of building a society around the best interests of children". Mr. Court went on to highlight the references to India in this year’s report.

Of more than 450 million children immunised against polio in 1998, India alone vaccinated 134 million children during national immunisation days. India’s reservation policy for women has also drawn applause in the chapter on 21st Century Leadership, which showcases India’s 1992 constitutional amendment, reserving a third of all panchayat seats for women, also including those from the lowest castes.

Reform, the report says, will also have to be at a personal level, through decisions such as sending a young girl to school rather than keeping her at home. Data provided in the report also indicates that the Maternal Mortality Ratio in India is 410 per 100,000 live births. Malnutrition accounts for over 50 per cent children below five years being underweight, 18 per cent suffer wasting and 52 per cent stunting.

The report says nearly 200 million Indians do not have access to safe water, while some 700 million, mainly in the rural areas, do without proper sanitation. Nearly 67 million children in India still do not have access to basic education and nearly 360 million Indians will enter the new millennium, unable to read or write.

Looking back at the decade that was, the report describes it as an "undeclared war on women, adolescents and children as poverty, conflict, chronic social instability and preventable diseases such as HIV/AIDS threaten their human rights and sabotage their development." According to the report, nearly five million persons in South Asia are infected with HIV, nearly half of them women, often infected by their husbands.

It warns that children in South Asia are particularly vulnerable as their ‘invisibility’ in government statistics on HIV/AIDS makes it very difficult to identify and protect those children most at risk. Highlighting the social powerlessness of women in the region, the report refers to a study in the city of Pune, where out of 400 women attending STD clinics, 13.6 per cent were found to be HIV positive. Of these, 91 per cent said they had sex only with their husbands.

The report states that globalisation is contributing to the growing number of poor people in the world, as expanding markets help increase the incomes of only a few. While women and children constitute a majority of the poor, poverty further exacerbates the discrimination against women. The report points out that there may be as many as 60 million ‘missing women’ in the world who, but for the gender discrimination that starts before they are born, would be alive today.

The report highlights some of the gender challenges facing the country, including the practice of female foeticide. It draws attention to some communities in Bihar and Rajasthan, where birth ratios, are as low as 60 females for every 100 males.

Desperate foreign mercenaries in Jammu and Kashmir are increasingly depending on drugs to commit "suicidal attacks" on security forces, even as they are getting alienated from local militants, according to top security officials. Local militants, they say, are no more in the reckoning with foreign mercenaries constituting almost 80 per cent of the 1500 ultras in the Kashmir valley alone.

"The advent of suicide squads in the valley, as projected in the media, is a myth. The mercenaries are resorting to desperate attacks on installations, including Army camps, under the influence of drugs," B. N. Kabu, Additional Deputy Inspector General, BSF, Srinagar frontier, who was in the Capital, said.Drugs, including heroin and cocaine, had been recovered from slain foreign mercenaries on several occasions.

Widespread concern was voiced across the country following attacks by "suicide squads" on a BSF residential campus in Bandipora July 13, in which four persons including a Deputy Inspector-General, were killed, and the Army headquarters at Badamibagh cantonment in Srinagar on November 3 in which a Major and six others died.According to BSF Director-General E. N. Rammohan, the so-called suicide squads in Kashmir were totally different from the suicide squads of the LTTE in Sri Lanka."These militants are mere religious fanatics, who have been brainwashed unlike the LTTE cadres who are motivated by nationalism," he said.