-NDTV Cooks While most of the country celebrates India's 68th Independence Day, a large part of it suffers in silence. This report doesn't intend to dampen the high spirits of people looking forward to a long weekend, but simply to point out a dark and undeniable truth. India is a malnutrition hotspot, one where half of its children are known to be chronically malnourished. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), out...

-The Indian Express Families have a preferred number of sons at any given fertility level as well as a preferred fertility level.   In his maiden Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lamented the neglect of daughters, restrictions on their movements, parental attitudes that favoured sons, shameful rapes of girls and women, the lack of toilet facilities and sanitation. In a populist vein, he urged parents to treat sons and daughters...

-The Indian Express India needs a national effort to speed up human development. That India was ranked 135 out of 187 countries on UNDP's human development index is perhaps the greatest concern for a nation with global ambition. In order to sustain our growth momentum and translate the gains of growth into wellbeing at a faster pace, India needs to rejig its strategy for accelerated human development. The performance in education and health...

-Down to Earth Going by current trends, the target for reducing infant Mortality and improving other human development indices seem near impossible to achieve Less that 500 days are left for nations to achieve the targets set under the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); there are eight such goals which range from halving extreme poverty rates to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education. The countdown for the deadline...

-IPS News MALKANGIRI (Odisha)- Scattered across 31 remote hilltop villages on a mountain range that towers 1,500 to 4,000 feet above sea level, in the Malkangiri district of India's eastern Odisha state, the Upper Bonda people are considered one of this country's most ancient tribes, having barely altered their lifestyle in over a thousand years. Resistant to contact with the outside world and fiercely skeptical of modern development, this community of under...