-The Hindu There are fewer girls with disabilities in school than boys, says report More than one in four children with disabilities between ages 5 and 19 in India have never attended any educational institution, while three-fourths of five-year-olds with disabilities are not in school. A report by UNESCO and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences released on Wednesday recommends structural, funding and attitudinal changes to ensure that no child is left out...

-The Hindu It is imperative to promote community-based care rather than relying only on hospital services The deaths of 154 children in Bihar due to acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) has laid bare the precarious capacity of the State’s healthcare apparatus to handle outbreaks. AES has been linked to two factors: litchi consumption by starving children and a long, ongoing heat wave. As promises of bolstering the health infrastructure are being made, it...

-The Hindu Just as individuals are punished for legal violations, the government of the day must also be punished for the violation of these basic rights. Three thoughts occur to me in the aftermath of the horrific tragedy in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, where the systemic failure of health care has killed over a hundred children. First, like the constitutional principle of a basic structure, it is time to articulate an equally robust...

-IndiaSpend.com Mumbai: As 128 children died of encephalitis in Bihar over 19 days to June 21, 2019, a new study reports that the state’s rural population prefers government investment in public healthcare over roads, jobs and cash transfers. In a survey conducted by the Brookings Institution, an American research group, in an administrative block of Bihar, 3,800 respondents--comprising the poor, less-educated and disadvantaged caste groups--were asked to make a choice: an incremental...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Villages where people still defecate in open face nearly 13 times higher risk of faecal contamination of ground water as compared to open defecation free (ODF) villages, says a study by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The assessment has also found that risk of ground water contamination in Bihar, one of the states which is yet to be declared ODF, is maximum at nearly 36%. The study,...