Fourteen-year-old Rekha Kalindi, who lives in an eastern India village roiled by starvation and underdevelopment, has never watched India's screen divas portray empowered women in lavish Bollywood movies. Living in a mud hut on one meal a day, Rekha this year made a long journey by train from this obscure hamlet in West Bengal to India's prosperous capital, New Delhi — where she was feted by the country's first female president, Pratibha Patil. The act that brought her fame: Rekha said "no." The girl said "no" to her parents when they arranged her marriage at age 13 last year, an...