At August 30 meet, it was felt there should be a system of two prices, differential entitlements Since then, NAC Working Group on Food Security has had detailed discussions The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) may be close to finalising the contentious Food Security Bill when it meets here on September 24. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and officials from Ministries concerned, including Women and Child Development Secretary, will be...

The Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls - Sabla - is likely to be launched in 200 select districts on November 14, celebrated as Children's Day in the country. The Scheme is aimed at addressing the multi-dimensional problems of adolescent girls between 11 and 18 years and would be implemented through the platform of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) projects and anganwadi centres. Over one crore girls are expected...

‘Institutional delivery wrong measure of maternal health' Approximately 1.83 million children under five die every year As world leaders gather in New York to debate how countries have fared on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), nearly 15,000 children under five will die in India — mostly from treatable diseases like pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria and complications at birth. Save the Children, a non-profit organisation working for children, has urged India to show leadership...

Now that it’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) week, expect a host of studies/ articles/ commentaries around how India has failed to meet the important MDGs, on how parts of India are worse than sub-Saharan Africa or Bangladesh when it comes to nutrition, and so on. The UN set the ball rolling when it said that “with just five years to the 2015 deadline for achieving the MDGs, the country as a...

Sharda, a 17-year-old mother, gave birth to her first child in February in a village in Noida, just a few hours' drive outside New Delhi. Though her son was born premature and weak, he received no treatment. In many parts of India, particularly in poor and marginalized communities, a woman is considered impure for a fortnight after giving birth. After labor, Sharda was relegated to a makeshift room outside her...