-The Hindu There is reason to be optimistic about the U.N. report on disability rights, but there is also disappointment at its failure to make the poverty connection The disability movement has waited anxiously for the report of the high level panel on post-2015, formed by the Secretary General of the United Nations, which was released in May. This document is expected to set the tone for the Secretary General's report on...

-The Business Standard UN report shows holes in govt's food security proposal The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has worked out the cost of malnutrition to the world economy: about five per cent of its annual gross domestic product, or $3.5 trillion, in terms of foregone production and health expenditure. Even more important is the FAO's assessment of potential gains from investment in enhancing the nutritional standards of the population....

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Several nutrition experts and members of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics, the largest association of paediatricians in India, have warned that the new set of papers on malnutrition published in the medical journal, Lancet, "should not be allowed to become an opportunity for commercial exploitation of malnutrition". "The call for engaging with the "private sector" and unregulated marketing of commercial foods for preventing malnutrition in children...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Lessons have not been learnt from past disasters, it seems. Delhi Metro, which ferries over two million passengers a day, is on a high-risk earthquake and flood zone and may lead to a huge loss of life in case of a disaster, says a recently released UN report on disaster risk reduction. The Global Assessment Report (GAR), released by the United Nations office on disaster risk...

-The Hindu While the focus is on pilgrims, nobody is talking about the fate of boys and men who came from their villages in the Mandakini valley to earn during the yatri season It is one week since Uttarakhand's worst disaster in living memory. Flash floods resulting from extremely intense rainfall swept away mountainsides, villages and towns, thousands of people, animals, agricultural fields, irrigation canals, domestic water sources, dams, roads, bridges, and...