-The United Nations   Millions of women worldwide continue to experience injustice, violence and inEquality in their homes, the workplace and public life, according to a new United Nations report that calls on governments to take urgent action to ensure real Equality between the sexes. “Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice” is the first major report by UN Women, the agency launched earlier this year to spearhead the world...

-PTI   India has contributed to a large reduction in global poverty, according to the UN annual report on the Millennium Development Goals , which also pointed out that despite progress, the most vulnerable sections of society were being left out. The report, which was released on Thursday , said that poverty continues to decline in many countries and regions. It said that the fastest and sharpest reductions in poverty were in Eastern...

Those of us interested in gender Equality tend to be obsessed with the politically and economically important areas in which we need this Equality — education, employment, health, political representation. But Equality in these important but grim attributes leaves out many things that actually make life more enjoyable and thus more worth living. Women deserve more from gender Equality than better housekeeping and management skills. In most societies, men are much...

A recent ILO report focusses on the discrimination in employment opportunities and remuneration and wants governments to act. IN recent years, one of the predominant concerns of international organisations, especially those that have a “rights” perspective, has been the impact of the global downturn on various vulnerable sections across the world. Notwithstanding the fact that many countries have signed and ratified conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and are...

The Right to Education Act, which lacks a transformational vision, is geared to preparing foot soldiers for the global market. THE most encouraging and delightful news regarding school education in India since the pro-market reforms began in 1991 came from Erode district in Tamil Nadu recently. To be sure, it is neither about the World Bank-sponsored District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) of the 1990s nor about the internationally funded and...