-Down to Earth While northeast states such as Manipur and Nagaland have shown a sharp deterioration in child sex ratio, the skewed ratio has improved marginally in Punjab and Haryana The steadily declining child sex ratio in India has reached emergency proportions and urgent action must be taken to alleviate this crisis, warned a latest United Nations (UN) study. The report, released on Tuesday, has attributed much of the declining numbers to...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance   The Economic Survey 2013-14 presented by the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitely has asked policy makers to design and execute development strategies targeting the young population that was approximately 58 per cent in 2001 and will increase to more than 64 per cent in 2021. The Government has to take timely action to make people healthy, educated and adequately skilled. Social-sector expenditure Expenditure on social services...

-WHO, UNFPA, International Confederation of Midwives   PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC - A report released today by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund together with the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), WHO and partners reveals that major deficits in the midwifery workforce occur in 73 countries where these services are most desperately needed. The report recommends new strategies to address these deficits and save millions of lives of women and newborns. The 73 African,...

-The Times of India   NEW DELHI: The World Health Organisation's (WHO) work of setting up norms and standards for production of medicines seems to be flawed by a fundamental conflict of interest. At the heart of its standard setting work is an entity the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) in which majority of the WHO member countries have no voting rights and which is dominated by pharmaceutical industry groups. This glaring...

-The Indian Express   A new study on the Dal Lake could point the way in dealing with ecological challenges   A multi-dimensional group of experts from the Bangalore-based biodiversity and environment think tank, ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment), embarked on a wide-ranging study to save Srinagar's Dal Lake. The ATREE team of experts includes a water quality scientist, a hydrologist, a sociologist, an institutional management and governance expert and...