Amid policy battles over food production, energy resources and economic decline, one untapped natural resource that is guaranteed to boost production on a global scale has been stubbornly overlooked – the power of women in the labour force. According to the World Bank's 2012 World Development Report (WDR) "Gender Equality and Development", ensuring equal access for women farmers would increase maize yields by 11 to 16 percent in Malawi and 17...

-The Business Standard   The poor progress made by states in stemming the declining sex ratio (of the number of girls in the 0-6 age group for every 1,000 boys) in the country has prompted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to write to the 28 state chief ministers on the issue. The recent census showed a decline in states which had earlier not reported one. This had prompted a high-level meeting in the Prime...

Maharashtra Minister launches “Save the Girl Child” campaign to curb sex-selective abortions In a packed cultural hall in Chandrapur, poor acoustics did not take away from a serious play on female foeticide. The voices of the actors went high and low as mikes were pushed hastily towards them. At the end of the play, there was a poignant appeal from an unborn girl who asked for a chance to live. On Sunday...

-The Hindustan Times   Terming its impact in curbing sex-selective abortions in Kolhapur district "heart warming", the Bombay high court (HC), on Friday, upheld the validity of Silent Observer - an electronic device attached to ultrasound machines that helps the administration in tracking sonographies conducted in a district. Dismissing the petition filed by the Maharashtra chapter of Indian Radiology and Imaging Association, the division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and justice RP...

Recommending civil society vigil to check female foeticide, a Parliamentary committee has asked the Union Government to ensure that the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, is not circumvented to give way to selective abortion in cases of female foeticide. It has also called for synchronisation of this Act with the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act (PC&PNDT Act), 1994, to check the social evil. It...