Maharashtra has been struggling with a declining child sex ratio and is ranked among the five worst states in the country. The reasons are the same as elsewhere: preference for a male child. But in a shocking indicator of how extreme this desire is and how deep-rooted the bias against the girl child can get, scores of families across Maharashtra have simply named their daughters ‘Nakushi’ or ‘Nakusha’—meaning ‘unwanted’ in...

Narendra Modi’s Gujarat is the only developed state in the country where the percentage of malnourished children is higher than the national average, a government report released today said. Gujarat has 44.6 per cent underweight children, compared to the country’s average of nearly 42 per cent. Six other states have a higher-than-average proportion of malnourished children but all of these are poor — Madhya Pradesh (60 per cent), followed by Jharkhand (56.5),...

-The Hindustan Times   The World Bank and International Monetary Fund just concluded their annual meetings in Washington. At an event on nutrition in South Asia, the evidence presented was clear and astonishing. On the one hand, South Asia has experienced robust economic growth averaging 6% a year over the past 20 years. On the other hand, the region continues to have unacceptably high rates of malnutrition with Bangladesh and India having...

-The Hindu   Nearly 20 years of campaigning against child labour in the fireworks industry has only driven the practice underground, a fact-finding study in Sivakasi conduced by a group of non-governmental organisations has said. Commissioned by Campaign Against Child Labour – Tamil Nadu, the study was jointly executed by members of Centre for Child Rights and Development (CCRD), NEED, Sivakasi, Human Rights Foundation, Indian Council for Child Welfare, Manitham of Sivaganga, and...

A couple from an Andaman tribe with just 100 members left have had a baby, sending their island hamlet into raptures and delighting anthropologists worried about the group’s extinction. The Onge baby boy born earlier this week to Shri Santosh, 28, and Reetai, 26, is doing fine, officials in the Andamans’ welfare department said today. “Both the mother and child are in good health. With the birth, the Onge population is now...