The Union government is reneging on its legal obligation to pay minimum wages, even to the most deprived sections of the population, in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. If anyone wants to study the capacity of India's policymakers to turn a progressive piece of legislation upside down, the wage policy under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a good place to...

The state government is all set to introduce a scheme to check the problem of iodine deficiency among pregnant women. This deficiency is known to cause grave consequences to newborns, ranging from mental retardation, brain damage to lower IQ. Under the new scheme, expected to roll out by January next, free iodised salt will be distributed to pregnant women. Iodine is a vital micronutrient, and is consumed mostly through salt....

An area of cultivated land the size of Italy is lost each year to environmental degradation, industrialization and urbanization, a UN expert said Thursday. Up to 30 million hectares (75 million acres) of land is lost to the new pressures and Olivier De Schutter, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said 500 million small farmers suffer from hunger partly because "their right to land is under attack." "As rural populations...

Businesses and policy-makers need to recognize the tremendous economic value of ecosystems, as well as the social and economic costs of losing such natural resources as forests, freshwater, soils and coral reefs, a new United Nations report released today said. The report by the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), a body hosted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), seeks to galvanize the world to recognize the economic consequences of failing...

The World Health Organisation today challenged the findings of the study that has suggested that India witnesses far more malaria deaths than is documented by the government or estimated by the WHO. The study by Indian and Canadian researchers indicated that malaria kills about 205,000 people in India each year, a figure 200-fold higher than the health ministry’s count, and 18 times the WHO estimate, as reported in The Telegraph today. A...