-The United Nations With the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) looming, United Nations officials today called on countries to accelerate action to meet the global targets that have spurred the fastest reduction of poverty in human history. "With less than 830 days to go before the MDG target date, now is the time to accelerate progress - not give up," sAid the Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Helen...
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A lifeline that rural India cannot do without -Raman Kataria and Yogesh Jain
-The Hindu The huge deficit in blood availability outside urban centres must jolt the government into legalising unbanked blood supply Twenty-year-old Putul, living in a village 70 km from a district headquarters town in Chhattisgarh, had been in labour for two days and a night. It was her first pregnancy. In order to hasten labour, the local quack administered several injections that increased her uterine contractions. Forty hours after the onset of...
More »UN agency reports ‘dramatic’ progress on reducing new HIV infections
-The United Nations The rate of new HIV infections fell by one-third over the past decade due to increased spending and effective treatment, the United Nations agency leading the global HIV/AidS response today reported. The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AidS (UNAidS) estimated that 2.3 million adults and children were newly infected with HIV in 2012, a figure that represents a 33 per cent reduction in annual new cases compared to 2001. In the...
More »Wasted food for thought
-The Hindu That one-third of the food produced annually for human consumption is wasted is in itself unconscionable in a world where 870 million, or one in eight people, go hungry every day. A United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation report now says that this high volume of wastage that occurs right through the food supply chain exerts an adverse impact on land, water, biodiversity and climate change. This impact...
More »NAC to examine effect of developmental interventions and constitutional safeguards on tribal people-Smita Gupta
-The Hindu The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) will examine whether developmental interventions and constitutional safeguards - including Fifth Schedule provisions - have come to the Aid of tribal people in Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected districts in central India. An NAC Working Group (WG) headed by tribal expert Professor Virginius Xaxa - who also heads the Prime Minister's high level committee that is to produce a report on the...
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