KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...

The Centre is all set to launch a scheme of granting domestic LPG connections free of cost to the below poverty line (BPL) families. The scheme, covering around 35 lakh families every year, is likely to be launched on October 2 (Gandhi Jayanti). The initiative was taken by Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada. Now, a consumer has to pay Rs. 1,250 as security deposit for getting an...

In Vijaypura village, marginalised women, especially widows, have used the RTI tool to procure food grains under PDS and are living a healthy life. The movement, instigated by a young RTI activist, boasts of achieving the millennium goal of reducing hunger by half in the region. It was from the state of Rajasthan that the Right to Information (RTI) movement emerged as an idea that went on to capture national...

In pushing for a greatly truncated PDS, the Food Security Bill proposed by the NAC, which has many right-to-food activists, undermines the PDS itself. ENSURING food security was the big promise of United Progressive Alliance-2. The promise to enact legislation to ensure a minimum quantity of affordable food to all poor households in the country was part of the election manifesto of the Congress party that leads the government. The 100-day...

Participating in the second meeting of the Chief Ministers' Working Group on Food and Public Distribution here, Chattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Wednesday asked the Centre to make the public distribution system (PDS) universal in the Left-Wing Extremism-affected districts, as well as, all Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste families living in tribal areas to do away with “errors of exclusion.” Mr. Singh is a member of the working group, set...