The deaths of 18 lakh girl children in India in the past two decades have for the first time been linked to domestic violence against their mothers. After examining over 1.58 lakh births that took place between 1985 and 2005, an international team of researchers found that spousal violence against wives increased the risk of death among female children, but not male children, in both the first year and the first...

Right to Education a special achievement of our government: Prime Minister Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said making education a fundamental right was one of the special achievements of his government. “If there is one initiative that our government has taken in these six and a half years in office I consider really special, it is the Right to Education that has now been enshrined in our Constitution,” he said,...

Slamming the Central government’s stand on the use of toxic pesticide endosulfan as leading to “a grave violation of human rights”, the National Human Rights Commission has called for a nation-wide ban. India should also agree to a global ban, said the Commission, which also recommended higher compensation for victims. In its report submitted on Friday, the NHRC panel accused the government of ignoring the National Institute of Occupational Health’s study...

In recent years, the agricultural growth rate has tended to be lower than the population growth rate. This year, the former is nearing the target of 4%. But we still have a very large percentage of undernourished children, women and men. Poverty and destitution also remain stubborn. The Indian food security enigma rises from the mismatch between the grain mountains and the hungry millions. What are the prospects for ensuring...

Organized retail of packed food and raw food reduces prices of food for urban citizens and pays farmers a better price for the agricultural produce. It eliminates middle men and decision making at every other level. This is not rocket science. However, politicians refuse to do away with the WWII public distribution system in order to retain power at the district level. Well, for one thing, the format of the...