Conditional cash transfers” (CCTs) are a new buzzword in policy circles. The idea is simple: give poor people cash conditional on good behaviour such as sending children to school. This helps to score two goals in one shot: poor people get some income support, and at the same time, they take steps to lift themselves out of poverty. CCT enthusiasm, however, is often based on a superficial reading of the Latin...

The Global Hunger Index report paints a gloomy picture of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. WITH the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals just five years away, the 2010 Global Hunger Index report prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) paints a gloomy picture of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Some 29 countries in these regions, it says, have levels of hunger that are alarming or extremely alarming....

The report of the Javid Chowdhury Committee facilitated the resumption, in February 2010, of vaccine production in the three public sector units, one in Himachal Pradesh and the other two in Tamil Nadu. Javid Chowdhury, a former Health Secretary of the Government of India, recommended that the suspension of their licenses for manufacturing vaccines in 2008 should be revoked in the public interest and on the strength of the compliance...

The country is set to emulate Gujarat in tracking pregnant women and children on a continuing basis through a constant monitoring of their health, nutrition and immunisation profile. Twenty-three officials of health and family welfare departments and National Informatics Centre (NIC) from eight states are participating in a three-day training workshop to familiarise themselves with the Gujarat Model of what is now popularly known as 'E-Mamta', an official spokesperson said here...

Four infants died in Lucknow after they were given anti-measles vaccine The team will ascertain whether the vaccines were spurious or there were procedural lapses It will probe whether Auxiliary Nurse-Midwives were trained to administer the vaccine The Centre has sent a two-member team to Lucknow to probe the deaths of four infants after they were administered anti-measles vaccination at an immunisation camp in the Mohanlal Ganj area. “Most stringent action will be taken...