Although the focus of erstwhile UPA and the present NDA government has been to achieve higher economic growth by reaping the 'demographic dividend', a recent report from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) informs us that a substantial chunk of the population underwent ageing during the last 60 years. The report entitled Elderly in India: Profile and Programmes 2016 from CSO (that comes under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) shows...

-The Hindu The global vaccine 'switch', from trivalent to bivalent OPV, has been recommended by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts as a critical component of the polio endgame strategy Beginning Monday, April 25, India will stop using the oral polio vaccine (OPV) with all three strains of the poliovirus (type 1, type 2 and type 3) and instead use OPV vaccines with only two strains — type 1 and type 3....

-Down to Earth Blog MGNREGA has been successful in Madhya Pradesh. Can the scheme also provide solutions for the current drought in the region? Sevanti Bai (45) lives alone in a village in Madhya Pradesh. Her husband died fifteen years ago, owing to health complications. With no land or children to depend on, she fends for herself by engaging in ‘rojgaar guarantee, as the locals call the scheme. MGNREGA, she says, has...

-The Hindu Vijayapura (Karnataka): While the government has initiated several schemes to tackle the problem of malnourishment among children, the University of Horticulture Sciences, Bagalkot, has come up with an innovative idea to effectively deal with this problem. According to the university, the project, if implemented, would not only address the issue of malnourishment but has also multiple advantages, including spreading awareness among children on the importance of horticulture. Vasant Ganiger, professor, Department...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: As many as 882 deaths in five years, nearly four-fifths of them in a single state. These statistics do not pertain to some inexorable natural calamities. These are figures of tribal children who lost their lives in state-run residential schools across the country between 2010 and 2015. These are numbers of innocent lives lost seemingly on account of sheer official apathy, manifest in the lack of basic...