Vrindavan widows eye new dawn on Raksha Bandhan

Ahead of Raksha Bandhan, several widows and manual scavengers tied rakhi to 50 upper-caste pundits and Sanskrit scholars at the century-old Gopinath temple here.
On Thursday, at least ten widows will visit Prime Minister Narendra Modi on behalf of around 2,000 widows of Vrindavan and Varanasi on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan.
The initiative was taken by NGO, Sulabh International, whose mentor Bindeshwar Pathak has been campaigning for social equality for four decades.
"The idea behind this is how to change thoughts, behaviour and attitude of the people of this country towards widows of India, who are their mothers, sisters and aunts, and so forth," Pathak said.

"We'll organise many such programmes for them in near future," Pathak said.
In places like Vrindavan and Varanasi, thousands of widows lead an isolated life to attain 'moksha' or liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth.