Child sex-ratio dropped to 914 in 2011 from 927 in 2001 Call for better implementation of PCPNDT Act Expressing concern over the declining child sex ratio as indicated in the provisional figures of the Census 2011, civil society groups have asked the Centre to take cognisance of the increasing challenges in this area of sex selection and undertake urgent measures to overcome these. As per the figures, the child sex-ratio has further dropped...

PREGNANT WOMEN in Kasargod district are fighting the endosulfan tragedy in their own way — by opting for abortion. A sacrifice conducted in silence, even a 10-year campaign against the chemical has not yet convinced the government to ban its use. Without the intervention of the welfare state, they are now released from the fear of death and chronic disease. They have seen enough. They have lost many in a short...

One of the least talked about issues in the debate on India's demographic dividend is child malnutrition. India is home to about a third of the world's underweight and stunted children under the age of 5. A child under 5 is almost twice as likely to be chronically underweight in India as in sub-Saharan Africa. Sadly, the impressive economic growth of the past decade has made only a modest dent into...

Government undecided on criteria to identify families below poverty line A survey by the Indian government in 2002 to determine households below poverty line (BPL) left out many poor families. Nearly a decade later, the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) is trying to set the wrong right. But it is unable to decide on the criteria for identifying poor households. As a consequence, the BPL survey that was to...

NEARLY 80 km from Pune is Ralegan Siddhi village with about 3,000 people. It would have been one among the hundreds of nondescript villages in Parner taluk of Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, had it not been for Kisan Baburao Hazare, 71, better known as Anna, or older brother, a title that was appended to his name after he made the village more than just a dot on the map. Until he was...