For unmarried couples, finding a hotel room in India can mean harassment. These startups are changing that.

It was after 11 pm, and Sumit Anand and his girlfriend needed a room for the night in Jim Corbett National Park in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand. But hotel staff peppered the couple with “bizarre questions,” recalls Anand. “Some were even concerned about the fact we belonged to different faiths.” The biggest sticking point, though, was that the tired couple weren’t married.

That incident was when Anand decided things needed to change. India has no law that prohibits consenting adults from booking a hotel room. But deep-seated conservatism and a taboo on premarital sex mean most Indian hotels, apart from high-end four- or five-star establishments, are reluctant to rent rooms to unmarried adults. Hotels generally insist couples either provide a marriage certificate or ID before letting them check in. Hotel management is also worried about police raids under archaic catchall public decency laws, say industry insiders.

A wave of hotel aggregators are emerging across India that provide affordable — a room can cost as little as $15 a night — and safe accommodations for young unmarried couples. These aggregators find and verify partner hotels that are willing to not only rent to unmarried couples but will also ensure they aren’t harassed. The websites are tapping into a growing need: On average, Indians are remaining unmarried a year longer than they were a decade ago. The trend, in turn, is offering a solution to other conservative societies where premarital sex isn’t illegal, yet remains taboo.

Sharon Dietrich is the attorney behind a movement embraced by everyone from Mark Zuckerberg to Charles Koch: expunging criminal records.

Thirty-two years ago, Sharon Dietrich was sitting at one of her first work events at her new job at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia (CLS),  when a man approached her. Like about 70 million Americans, he had a criminal record, and it was hindering his efforts to find a job. “Even though we haven’t been seeing those cases,” she thought, “I bet this happens to a lot of people.”

Sure enough, after studying CLS’ intake of new employment law clients, she found that 68 percent wanted to seal their criminal records, and studies have shown about 1 in 3 U.S. adults has a criminal record. Decades after her first encounter with that man seeking a job, she would develop a proposal for the automatic sealing of criminal records.

Víctor Paz Estenssoro fought for indigenous rights (and made many comebacks) long before Morales.

When Evo Morales, who until just days ago was the president of Bolivia, took office, he was a trailblazer. The first indigenous leader in Bolivia’s history, Morales — along with his party, the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) — had a goal of decolonizing Bolivia’s land. In 14 years at the helm, he made considerable progress: Indigenous rights were expanded, natural resources nationalized and environmental protection decrees passed.

But Morales is not the first groundbreaking leader in Bolivia’s recent history — in fact, the country has long been the vanguard of radical political, economic, environmental and demographic reform.