-The Business Standard   Young women in India are much better off than their mothers, but they fare much worse than their counterparts in many developing countries when it comes to the physical survival rate of women and participation in labour force, says a report by the World Bank. The World Development Report titled ‘Gender Equality and Development’ looks at gender inequality as not just a moral but also an economic issue. The report...

India has markedly improved the access of girls to education, besides bringing down fertility and infant mortality rates, but the World Development Report 2012 on ‘Gender and Development’ issued warnings on other fronts—women’s labour participation rates remain stagnant and domestic violence is alarmingly high. The report, launched on Thursday at the World Bank, also highlighted high rates of domestic abuse and their relationship to reproductive health apart from high maternal mortality...

-ANI   Expressing concern over the excess female and infant mortality rates in various states of the country, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has said that economic growth does not necessarily translate into gender equality.  "Economic growth does not automatically ensure gender equality. In fact, it is a very tenuous relationship between and I have something to say about this in the Indian context, but I think it is a very salutary finding...

As a national debate rages over the Indian poverty line, in the heart of Bandra, one of Mumbai’s richest suburbs, in a shanty with barely enough standing space for two adults, three-year-old Priya Doiphode, clad in a red tee shirt, lies listless on a string bed. Priya is one of the 83,243 children in Mumbai who are malnourished, according to government data, a statistic that makes Mumbai the most malnourished...

Kerala has the most number of female national rural employment guarantee act (NREGA) workers in the country, according to the rural development ministry's 2008 assessment. And the projection for the year 2010 showed 95% of NREGA workers in the state would be women. Why more women come for NREGA work is because men in Kerala are not ready to work for Rs 150 a day, the wage that is paid. But...