New Delhi - Prime Minister Narendra Modi earned praise on social media as he broke taboos surrounding menstruation in India by referring to a scheme to provide low-cost sanitary pads during his Independence Day speech on Saturday.
Traditionally, in Hindu society menstruating women are considered impure. They are not allowed to enter temples, touch objects with religious connotations or enter the kitchen, among other taboos.
While some no longer follow these strictures, a majority of women, specially in rural India, continue to abide by them.
Women speak about the menstruation cycle largely in private and away from the ears of men. Chemists wrap packs of pads in newspaper before handing them to customers.
The social stigma and shame attached to menstruation often leads to adolescent girls dropping out of school and catching diseases from using unhygienic alternatives to sanitary pads.
"Speaking about sanitary napkins from the red fort is surely a big step towards #womenempowerment. It will help in reaching out to masses," one post said on microblogging site Twitter.
"PM @narendramodi speaks about 'Sanitary Napkins' from the ramparts of Red Fort. Woke Indians, don't undermine the progressive social shift this indicates. This is HUGE - menstruation a mainstream conversation in conservative India," said another.
"The government has provided 5 crore [50 million] of sanitary pads for poor women at 1 rupee each through 6,000 Jan Aushadhi stores," Modi said while listing his government's efforts for the empowerment of women.
Jan Aushadhi means people's medicine in Hindi and the stores are outlets promoted by the government to sell generic medicine at low cost. One rupee is equal to about 1.3 US cents.
Modi also said the government was setting up a panel that would consider the appropriate minimum age of marriage for women and it would take a decision after the panel submitted its report.
Child marriage has long been illegal in India with a bar on women under 18 and men under 21 getting married.
However, data from a government survey in 2015-16 shows that 26.8 per cent of women in India are married before 18 and 7.8 per cent in the age group 15-19 are mothers or are pregnant.
Adolescent pregnancies lead to about one-third of the new births in India, according to the survey.
Health practitioners maintain early marriage can have a deep negative impact on the health of girls.
The risk of maternal mortality is highest for girls under 15 years and complications in pregnancy and childbirth are higher among girls aged in the age group 10-19 compared to women aged 20-24, according to the World Health Organization.
dpa