The proposed liberalisation of the mining and minerals sector is an assault on the rightful owners of the land and its resources. Tribal and indigenous communities across the world have been asserting their rights to the mineral wealth often found under the land they own or possess or have traditional rights to. They have been historically denied even a share of that huge wealth, leave alone legal rights of ownership. Under...

-PTI Study claims more than half of them died in the first 28 days of their life More than 16.8 lakh children under five years died of infectious, but preventable, diseases in India in 2010 and more than half of them could not complete the first month of their life, a new study has claimed. Of the total deaths, 52 per cent, or about 0.875 million, were among the children who died in...

-The United Nations Some 15 million babies worldwide – more than one in ten births – are born too early, according to a new United Nations-backed report, released today, which calls for steps such as ensuring the requisite medicines and equipment and training health staff to promote child survival. “All newborns are vulnerable, but preterm babies are acutely so,” says Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who wrote the foreword to the report, entitled...

Going by just the number of countries, the global average for the age of consent is 16. The government's proposal of criminalizing consensual sex with any person below 18 will put India in the company of countries such as Rwanda, Uganda, Chile, Peru and Egypt, none of whom can be counted among liberal democracies. While the age of consent across the world ranges from 13 to 18, the bulk of the...

-Reuters Rome: Governments are failing to fund projects to improve access to toilets and other sanitation services in poor countries because the subject remains "taboo", a director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said on Monday. "Who wants to talk about shit?" asked Frank Rijsberman, Director of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene at the $ 34 billion charitable foundation, during an interview with Reuters on Monday. "It's the last big taboo and as...