I am a freelance reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area and former longtime health editor at New America Media. Before joining NAM, I worked variously at India-West, a national weekly newspaper for the South Asian community in the U.S., the Cape Cod Times, the Providence Journal and the New Bedford Standard Times, covering topics ranging from health to immigration to crime to social issues, especially those relating to women. For a couple of years, I also free-lanced for the North American edition of India Today and Business Today, both leading magazines in India. In the last decade, I have won eight journalism awards, my most notable being for my national expose on McDonald’s use of beef in its so-called vegetarian french fries. That story won me two first prize awards for investigative reporting, one from the South Asian Journalists Association and the other from New America Media. My series of stories on Women and AIDS in India won me a New America Media award in 2006. Passionate about women’s issues, I am a co-founder of Narika, a Berkeley-based help line for South Asian women. I am also an animal rights activist. My professional affiliations include the Association of Health Care Journalists, the Society for Professional Journalists and the South Asian Journalists Association.

Articles

When companies don't cover autism therapy, families suffer

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, an outspoken critic of Obamacare, has touted the benefits of self-funded health insurance plans. But the company's own plan places limits on coverage such that families with autistic children are often forced shoulder the costs of treatment.

Bad Teeth a Barrier to Health and Jobs

Bad Teeth a Barrier to Health and Jobs

<p>For years, Eva Marie Warren, 53, avoided eye contact with passers-by as she panhandled on the streets, for fear of having to smile back or make small talk. To smile or talk would compel her to reveal something she was deeply embarrassed about – her teeth.</p>

Asians Using Clinics to Choose Sex of Their Child

<p>The yearning for a male child in some Asian cultures -- Indian, Korean and Chinese in particular – runs deep. A male child is perceived as someone who will be a breadwinner when he grows up and take care of his parents in their old age, someone who will also continue the family line. In India, a girl child is viewed as a net loss to the family, mostly because when she is given away in marriage, she is expected to bring with her a dowry, a practice that still persists, despite the fact that it was banned in that country many years ago.</p>