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...

KEY TRENDS   • Section 105 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which provides for excluding 13 Central legislation, including Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885, Atomic Energy Act, 1962, Railway Act 1989, National Highways Act 1956 and Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978, from its purview, has been amended for payment of compensation with rigours $ • The amendments have now...

When noted economist Jean Dreze visited Surguja in Chhattisgarh a decade ago, its utterly non-functional Public Distribution System (PDS) looked like especially “designed to fail.” The National Advisory Committee member has written in a recent article that the ration shop owners illegally sold the grain meant for the poor and “hunger haunted the land.” But that was then. The economist was pleasantly shocked to see the transformation this time. “Ten years...

Civil society representatives from more than 70 countries wrapped up a United Nations forum today with an urgent call to action to improve the health of millions of men, women and children worldwide and step up efforts to achieve the globally agreed anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In a wide-ranging declaration adopted at the end of the three-day meeting in Melbourne, Australia, participants stressed that achieving...

Bangalore-based Foundation of Biotechnology Awareness and Education (FBAE) has asked the government to lift the indefinite moratorium imposed on commercial introduction of Bt brinjal in the country by the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF). It stated that the indefinite moratorium has created a 'regulatory uncertainty' on the development of all genetically engineered crops which are at the various stages of development in the country. Stating that the environment ministry is strongly...