Anu Aga stepped down in October from her high-profile job as the chairperson of the 538-crore Thermax Group, bringing an end to her 19-year-old corporate career. Aga handed her job over to her chemical engineer daughter, Meher Pudumjee, to devote herself to social work.

Nushu was a language spoken only by women. Yang Huanyl of China, who was the last woman in the world to speak it, died at 98 in September. Her death marked the end of a 400-year-old tradition in which women communicated through codes incomprehensible to men.

Filmmaker Theo van Gogh, grandnephew of famous Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, was murdered in November in retaliation for the film, Submission, he had created which portrayed the life of a Muslim woman forced into a violent marriage. In December, police confirmed the identity of the main suspect: an Islamic extremist.

It?ll be a while for some people to register that women actually smoke and yes, even swear. The Chennai Censor Board in August asked Manu Rewal, director of the Konkona Sen Sharma-starrer Chai Paani, delete a visual of a girl smoking and blip certain cusswords.

An estimated 1,150,000 descended on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in March to voice opposition to government attacks on women?s reproductive rights and health. At ?The March for Women?s Lives?, the official crowd count was the largest ever for women?s rights rallies in the nation?s capital.

In December, the Union Cabinet finally cleared a proposal to equalise family property rights between men and women. Amending the Hindu Succession Act of 1956, the proposed Bill gives daughters equal share with their brothers in family property. The change in the law was so long overdue that several Indian states had already got there before the central government did.

The Japanese government announced end-November that it had decided to look at allowing a female to ascend the throne of the world?s oldest royal line in a move that could ease stress on the crown princess to produce a male heir. A 10-member task force will examine a post-World War Two law that bans women from ruling. It is expected to make recommendations to the government by late next year. No boy has been born into the Japanese royal family since the 1960s. Opinion polls show more than 80 percent of Japanese would welcome a reigning empress.

In May, Marianne Legato released Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine, a two-volume textbook which explored for the first time how biological differences between men and women affect ? or should affect ? diagnosis and treatment. Legato is a pioneer of a movement calling for ?gender-specific? medicine.

British scientists writing in the journal Nature in September reported a trend, predicting that by the 2156 Olympics, women will overtake men as faster runners. The winner of the 100-metre women?s sprint in Athens last year was Yuliya Nesterenko of Belarus, with a time of 10.93 seconds. The men?s winner was Justin Gatlin of the United States, with 9.85 seconds.

Thirty-two-year-old Mia Hamm who enjoyed the twin distinction of twice being selected FIFA women?s World Player of the Year and also being named People magazine?s 50 Most Beautiful People, hung up her boots in December. Hamm was the most prolific scorer ? male or female ? in the history of international soccer.

In November the Rajasthan government announced that it would grant paternity leave of 15 days to its staff, while the maternity leave period has been increased from 120 to 135 days. This, however, came with a rider: the leave would not be given for more than two children.

Allison Schieffelin, the Wall Street bond trader who sued Morgan Stanley for sex discrimination, won without a fight in July. Rather than risk letting a jury decide if there really was discrimination against female employees, the firm agreed to pay $54 million to settle the suit.

Olivia Goldsmith, best-selling novelist whose book First Wives Club was made into a hit movie starring Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane Keaton, died at 54. A campaigner for older women?s right to live a full life died, ironically, due to complications arising from plastic surgery.

Bryan Sykes?s April release, Adam?s Curse: A Future Without Men (W. W. Norton and Co.) hinted that men may actually face extinction. He reveals that while the Y chromosome defines a man, it also carries within it the seeds of his destruction: male greed, aggression and promiscuity and the possible existence of a male homosexual gene.

Same-sex marriages came out into the open. In February 2004, Sheela and Sree Nandu, Kerala?s celebrated same-sex couple, had, after being hounded by their families, declared in a magazine interview, ?We want to live together till death?. The year-end saw two girls from Amritsar eloping to marry. Mala flaunted her secret marriage in Delhi to Raju (the pair above). Their parents blamed the movie Girlfriend while, in Bihar, a lesbian couple was harassed by the police. Social sanction and the freedom of choice might be far away but such relationships are, increasingly, coming out of the closet.

Time magazine named President George W. Bush as the 2004 ?Person of the Year? for the second time. Time?s annual title was originally ?Man of the Year,? a much more fitting description as only four individual women, one group of women, and ?US Women? as a whole have been given the title in a 77-year-old history.

On December 25, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board announced that the concept of triple talaq in a single sitting is a crime and Muslim couples should not opt for it. Though the board could not outright scrap the system, its efforts in the face of stiff resistance from some Muslim clergy, deserves a salute.

A survey published in June on the status of women journalists in India brought no surprises. Conducted by the National Commission for Women, it showed that many of them ? a class presumed to be calling the shots ? are paid poorly and work without appointment letters, maternity leave or childcare facilities; few get promotions and ? difficult as it is to believe ? several face sexual harassment at work.