-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The ministry of women and child development on Monday strongly refuted a Reuters report which attributed certain comments to Union minister Maneka Gandhi on the impact of cuts in budgetary allocation. The ministry issued a clarification and said the interpretation of the interview and certain comments attributed to the minister in the report are completely incorrect. Here's the full text of the clarification issued by the ministry: Reuters,...

-The Indian Express It requires a far wider spectrum of interventions than mere clinical management. The latest edition of the Global Nutrition Report 2015 by the International Food Policy Research Institute, released on Tuesday, brings back the concerns over malnutrition into sharp focus. In July, the government of India, after much avoidable controversy, released malnutrition (used synonymously as undernutrition) figures from the Rapid Survey on Children (RSoC) data that was collected...

-The Hindu While the Rapid Survey on Children points to substantial progress in fields that have become a focus of serious action, such as safe delivery, it also highlights the penalties of inaction in other fields The recent release of summary findings from the Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC) has generated remarkably little interest in the mainstream media. The main focus of attention so far has been the indifferent performance of Gujarat...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Expecting mothers could get maternity leave for eight months if Union minister Maneka Gandhi has her way. Gandhi—in charge of the ministry of women and child development---has proposed increasing maternity leave from three months to eight months. "We have mooted a proposal of extending the maternity leave for working women from present three months to eight months to the Cabinet Secretariat for a discussion in the...

-Hindustan Times Women and child development (WCD) minister Maneka Gandhi wants the three-month maternity leave presently granted to working women under the Maternity Benefits Act, 1961, to be increased to eight months, so as to enable mothers to take better care of their newborns. The Union labour ministry is already considering a proposal to increase the existing maternity leave from three to six months but Gandhi wants it to be further increased...