-PTI NEW DELHI: Poverty ratio in the country has declined to 21.9% in 2011-12 from 37.2% in 2004-05 on account of increase in per capita consumption, Planning Commission said. According to the commission, in 2011-12 for rural areas, the national poverty line by using the Tendulkar methodology is estimated at Rs 816 per capita per month in villages and Rs 1,000 per capita per month in cities. This would mean that the persons...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A close scrutiny of the accounts of the Bihar government shouldn't surprise you about the midday meal (MDM) tragedy that claimed the lives of more than 20 children last week. To make matters worse, there were serious infrastructure inadequacies in government hospitals meant to treat children who had taken ill. The level of Bihar government's lethargy and callousness is far more serious than what is known...

Adding to the debate over celebrity economists blaming India’s malnutrition and stunting vis-à-vis Sub Saharan Africa on genetic differences, Dean Spears, a public health expert and a visiting fellow at Delhi School of Economics, offers evidence connecting our poor sanitation and open defecation with high morbidity and malnutrition. (see both links below). In an evidence-based paper titled Policy Lessons from Implementing India’s Total Sanitation Campaign (2012), based on the review...

-The Times of India SAMBALPUR/BHUBANESWAR: Wails of bereaved mothers filled the wards and corridors of VSS medical College and Hospital on Saturday as nine babies died at the hospital in the past 22 hours. While hospital authorities attributed the deaths to a host of reasons, locals put the blame on long uncontrolled exposure to light therapy at the sick newborn care unit (SNCU). "The high number of deaths is shocking. But the...

-The Hindu For a scheme that the Central government has declared an essential arm of its educational and nutritional objectives in the last three days, both the Central and the State governments have shown a remarkable lack of concern for the 27 lakh workers, most of them women, who administer it. The tragedy that killed 23 children in Bihar's Chapra village last Tuesday has shone a rare spotlight on India's mid-day meal...