-The Hindu New Census data indicates that two processes around the preference for a male child are going on simultaneously in India — prenatal sex determination and repeated pregnancies. Data on family sizes and sex ratios released on Monday showed that at every family size, there were more boys born than girls. However as family sizes got bigger, the sex ratio within the family got much less skewed, indicating that families with...

-Hindustan Times A ban on slaughter doesn’t automatically lead to a flourishing cow population, an HT analysis of government data has found, with states like Madhya Pradesh — where cow killing is outlawed — reporting a more than 40% decline in their numbers in rural areas over a decade. Between 2003 and 2013, at least nine states registered a significant decline in the ownership of cows by the rural households, according to...

-The Hindu Bengaluru: Although the 2013 District-Level Household and Facility Survey (DLHS-4) reveals that the maternal mortality rate in Karnataka has dropped from 178 in 2008 to 133 in 2013, Karnataka is still way behind its southern peers on maternal health. For every 1,00,000 childbirths in Karnataka, 133 mothers die, ranking the State fourth in south India and seventh in India. While Kerala tops the list, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have...

  Seven journalists from English and Hindi media from Delhi, Chandigarh, Jharkhand, Haryana, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh have been selected for the prestigious Inclusive Media-UNDP Fellowships 2015. The fellows will take time off from routine journalism to spend time with rural/ marginalized communities to highlight their anxieties and concerns that require wider coverage and public attention. The fellowships cover costs of news gathering, logistics and incidental expenses up to Rs 150,000. The...

-Hindustan Times “Adam’s rib is a good place to begin the Story of Creation,” says Martha Mary as tea is poured into cups in a room at a presbytery over which a brief rain is falling. “But there are two versions,” says the elderly office-bearer of a women’s wing of the Presbyterian church in Shillong. “The first version says God made Man, and the Woman comes from his rib. In another...