KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...

REGULARITY and repetition—of returning rains, of seasonal temperatures, of the cycles of life and death—are the essence of agriculture. So perhaps it is not surprising when events recur. In 2007-08, food prices soared. Mozambique and 30 poor countries endured food-price riots. Russia led a procession of grain exporters to restrict sales. And the world had to face up to changes in the pattern of food demand, reversing decades of declining...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was right when he maintained in his meeting with the media that the judiciary should not stray into the realm of policy formulation for food management. But the same plea cannot apply to the media which brought the issue of rotting of foodgrain to public attention and virtually put the government in the dock for criminal wastage of grains in its warehouses. Policy deficiencies are clearly...

NEW DELHI: Food, PDS and civil supplies minister Sharad Pawar made a big pitch to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here on Thursday on sugar sector decontrol. He placed a plan for the Centre to buy sugar at prevailing market price for the public distribution system (PDS) directly from the open market in the new sugar year starting October. If this goes through in the coming season, sectoral decontrol would be attained after 15 years of waiting for...

Food, PDS and civil supplies minister Sharad Pawar made a big pitch to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here on Thursday on sugar sector decontrol. He placed a plan for the Centre to buy sugar at prevailing market price for the public distribution system (PDS) directly from the open market in the new sugar year starting October. If this goes through in the coming season, sectoral decontrol would be attained after...