Women in 65 villages of Karnal  district, Haryana, have transformed their lives through self-help groups and microcredit schemes The infant mortality and maternal mortality rates have both come down substantially 94 per cent of the women now have ante- and post-pregnancy checks Institutional deliveries rising; anaemia in pregnant women down. No girl is married off before she’s 18 Taravanti clearly remembers the time, 19 years ago, when she got married...

For more than seven years, Babar Ali, 17, has been teaching children from poor families for free at a School he founded in a West Bengal village, while studying at another School. Ali opened the Ananda Shiksha Niketan at Gangapur village in Murshidabad district in 2002, when he was just nine. Today, the School has more than 800 students. Another 200 have applied to join in the next session—making it larger...

Of the 1 crore children in the age group of 14-18 years who currently pursue secondary education, 16 lakh are doing it through open Schooling system In a step aimed at enhancing the acceptability of open Schooling system, the government is considering framing a policy which will enable regular Schools adapt distance education programme. “A national policy will be evolved under which regular Schools will embrace distance education. This will make distance...

The Kolkata Group is an independent initiative inspired and chaired by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen. Once a year, it brings together participants drawn from various fields to explore the many inter-connections between inequality, deprivation, human development, and democracy. Its special focus has been on examining ways of advancing people’s health and education. The organisations supporting the Kolkata Group are UNICEF India, Professor Sen’s Pratichi Trust, and the Harvard-based Global...

The global economic downturn could push an additional 21 million people in the Asia-Pacific region into extreme poverty, rolling back development gains, according to a United Nations-backed report issued today. The publication, launched in Manila, examines the toll that the crisis has taken on progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – eight anti-poverty targets agreed upon by world leaders with a 2015 deadline – in the Asia-Pacific. Produced...