"The women say the newsroom structure remains loose and titles are often trumped by a system of respect among equals. A key point in many of the women's lives came when they realized, usually at some point in primary or middle school, that as Dalits they'd been born at the bottom of India's social pyramid.

The painful awareness came when she realized the teacher in her remote village never drank the water she offered him and would accept it only from higher-caste students."