-The Business Standard E-waste disposal cannot ignore the informal sector The deadline for the enforcement of new electronic waste (e-waste) management norms is just a month or so away. And yet, most of the sector’s stakeholders seem quite unprepared. The E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011, notified almost a year ago as coming into effect from May 1 this year, require producers of electronic and white goods to take back their products...

Methodology error, intentionally manipulated data of poor quality and perilous local level political partiality is making the life of poor miserable and proved time and again that ‘any initiative for the poor tends to be a poor initiative.’ The erroneous way of assessing multi-dimensional indicators for locating the poor without making any distinction between facilities self-created by someone against facilities created through government schemes is nothing but an attempt to hide...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has released draft recommendations for a social security package for the country’s unorganized sector, which envisages providing life, disability and health cover, maternity benefits and old-age pension to workers. NAC, in a draft released on 7 March, suggested that the different welfare schemes being run by the ministries of women and child development, health and family welfare, finance and labour and employment should be...

Medical Council of India failed to start rural health practitioner course The Delhi High Court on Monday issued contempt notices to the health ministry and the Medical Council of India (MCI), the country’s apex body for medical education, for not starting rural health practitioner course and thus failing to comply with its order. The bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi issued notices to P K Pradhan, secretary with the Union Ministry of Health...

The right of women to participate in political life is guaranteed by several international conventions, but transforming an abstract right into a reality requires hard work on the ground, says a new study released here. Published jointly by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) for International Affairs, the 118-page report points out that although 40 to 50 percent of members of political parties globally are women,...