Taking education to sex workers and prisoners in jail in West Bengal, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) has decided to waive fees for them. “To start with, Ignou has decided to select the red light district of Sonagachi here from where 26 sex workers are likely to join courses on healthcare and food and nutrition programmes,” Ignou vice-chancellor V.N. Rajsekharan Pillai said. He said that the Kolkata Regional Centre would...
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Lessons from BPL Censuses by VK Ramachandran, Y Usami and Biplab Sarkar
To perpetuate a system that assigns a household to a single BPL/APL category in circumstances in which poverty is multi-dimensional is not only bad economics, but unconscionable as well. The pilot surveys for the next Census of BPL (below-poverty-line) households are due to begin. Discussions are now on to finalise the methodology for the survey, and as the BPL Census is a matter of the subsistence and survival of hundreds...
More »Maternal deaths in sharp decline across the globe by Denise Grady
Study based on better data, more sophisticated statistical methods Among poor countries progress varied considerably The improvements represent “hope at last” For the first time in decades, researchers are reporting a significant drop worldwide in the number of women dying each year from pregnancy and childbirth, to about 342,900 in 2008 from 526,300 in 1980.The findings, published in the medical journal The Lancet, challenge the prevailing view of maternal mortality as an intractable...
More »Female infanticide affects sex ratio in Punjab by Vrinda Sharma
“She was thrown in the garbage dump outside the village for dogs that ate her. Her only fault — she was the fourth girl born in a poor family,” said Harshinder Kaur, paediatric doctor here, recalling the first time she witnessed discrimination against female infants in Punjab's rural side. “Over a decade ago, I couldn't save that infant and ever since I try to speak for the girls who never...
More »Double oilseed production to achieve self-sufficiency
With the increase in population and purchasing power of people, the per capita oil consumption too is rising steadily. The oil requirement in India is projected to be 18.3 million tonnes in 2015 and 21.8 million tonnes in 2020. To meet the demand, the current production of 29.75 million tonnes of oilseeds has to be doubled in the next 12 years to achieve self-sufficiency, said P. Murugesa Boopathi, Vice-Chancellor of Tamil...
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