-The Hindu Until trial results are out, countries like India must focus on interventions such as largescale testing, isolation, contact-tracing, and physical distancing, says Madhukar Pai, Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology & Global Health Madhukar Pai, is Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology & Global Health and Director, McGill Global Health Programs and Professor at McGill University. In an email interview to The Hindu, he explains the debate on BCG vaccine’s purported effectiveness...

-The Hindu NITI Aayog’s draft working paper to strengthen the ICDS programme in urban areas For every 100 anganwadi beneficiaries in the country, only seven are in urban areas, according to the government’s response to a Right to Information (RTI) query from The Hindu. This is primarily because of a severe lack of anganwadis in cities, leading to poor coverage of the government’s flagship programme in early childhood development.   Six services Anganwadis or day-care...

-The Hindu Worldwide, one child/young adolescent died every 5 seconds in 2018, says UN inter-agency group India is among the few countries in the world where, in 2018, the mortality under-5 years of girls, exceeded that of boys, according to the ‘Levels and Trends in Child Mortality’ report by the United Nations (UN) inter-agency group for Child Mortality. The global report states that in 2018 fewer countries showed gender disparities in Child Mortality,...

-The Indian Express As outrage continues over the deaths of babies in J K Lon Hospital in Kota, Rajasthan, and in the civil hospital in Rajkot, Gujarat, the fact remains that India has the most child deaths in the world. In 2017, UNICEF estimated 8,02,000 babies had died in India. Every day, India witnesses the death of an estimated 2,350 babies aged less than one year. Among them, an average 172 are...

-The Indian Express Discussions of rural poverty fail to factor in multi-dimensional changes in the sector in the last five years Rural poverty in India has been the subject of discussion in recent times. Low increase in prices of agricultural commodities and the slower increase in rural agricultural wages have been seen by some as signs of a crisis for the rural poor. Many acknowledge the role of pro-poor public welfare...