Pushing Boundaries by Engaging Adolescent Girls and Communities Evidence from Evaluation of the PanKH Program in Rajasthan, India

India has more than 253 million adolescents,1 accounting for almost 21 percent of its population and making it one of the countries with the largest adolescent population in the world. Further, around 47 percent of this population is female. Adolescent girls in India continue to experience early and child marriage (ECM), early and repeated pregnancy as well as discontinuation/ dropout from secondary schools.2 There exists a wide interstate variation in the status of adolescents with respect to education and ECM, however, adolescent girls continue to remain marginalized in almost all states.