-The Times of India India aims to meet the much-awaited goal of reaching the total fertility rate(TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman —to 2.1% by the end of 12th five year plan (2012-17). The Planning Commission is likely to set the TFR target of 2.1 in its 12th Plan document, which is likely to be cleared by National Development Council (NDC) in October. "India is on...

Health ministry instead plans to roll out an integrated national health survey; experts question decision   The Union government has decided to discontinue the country’s most reliable and widely tracked health survey, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the fourth round of which was to be conducted in 2012-13, in a move that has been criticized by development experts. The ministry of health and family welfare is instead planning to roll out an...

India's impressive economic growth has not led to a reduction in under-nutrition among its children, according to a Harvard study that said the government should use its growing revenues for direct investments in aid like food stamps to address the problem. The Harvard School of Public Health study analysed malnutrition across various regions in India. It said under-nutrition was worst in poor and populous states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar...

A good marker of a country’s progress is the environment in which its children grow up.  Prevalence of malnutrition, hunger, unhygienic surroundings and forced child labour cost a country dearly in terms of its real growth. The State of the World's Children 2011 report shows how little is being invested in the future citizens of our world. The theme of this year’s report is “Adolescence: An Age of Opportunity” and...

With three small children to raise in a dirt-poor village in eastern India’s Bihar state, farm labourer Renu Devi is an unsung rural supermom who shuttles between home and field every day. But the demure 30-year-old mother does not forget to bring her children to the biannual Vitamin A rounds in Bagwanpur Rati, one of the villages in Vaishali district of Bihar. This is because Vitamin A deficiency is a major...