-The Times of India Amartya Sen is angry, and clearly getting impatient . Having urged Indian policymakers over decades to do more to combat poverty, hunger and illiteracy , the economist is now taking direct aim at what he feels is our continuing apathy as a nation towards the underprivileged. But in his own way - less the firebrand rhetorician and more the gentle but firm academic don that he is....
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India’s dysfunctional public health system
-Live Mint The country is a happy hunting ground for communicable diseases In a Mint article last week, economist Dean Spears pointed out that the double whammy of high population density and unsanitary conditions in India stunts the growth of children, who bear a disproportionate burden of infectious diseases and lose their ability to absorb nutrients. Unless India ramps up its public health system, providing extra food will mean little for...
More »Short-circuiting debate
-The Business Standard Food security should not be treated as a political ploy The government's rush to push through food security legislation as an ordinance, instead of waiting the few weeks till the next Parliament session, is disturbing. There continue to be several major problems with the food security scheme that deserve to be more thoroughly discussed at the highest level of law making than they have been so far. Nobody can...
More »More than cereals
-The Business Standard UN report shows holes in govt's food security proposal The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has worked out the cost of malnutrition to the world economy: about five per cent of its annual gross domestic product, or $3.5 trillion, in terms of foregone production and health expenditure. Even more important is the FAO's assessment of potential gains from investment in enhancing the nutritional standards of the population....
More »Despite slight drop, number of children missing out on school remains high, UN agency reports
-The United Nations New figures today from the United Nations educational agency show that the number of children out of school dipped slightly last year over 2011. Fifty-seven million children were out of school in 2011, according to the UN Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics, down just two million from the previous year. The agency also points out that the challenge of getting more children into school is being...
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