India's 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven - activists fear eight million female foetuses may have been aborted in the past decade. The BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi explores what has led to this crisis. Kulwant has three daughters aged 24, 23 and 20 and a son who is 16. In the years between the birth of her third daughter and her...

The Planning Commission’s definition of poverty is inexplicable In the urban sprawl that is Delhi, as in any other metro in the country, earning no more than Rs 25 per day with a family to support would prove nightmarish. Food and clothes have to be bought, there may be school-going children, colds, fevers or upset stomachs to get treated, someone with a chronic problem needing long-term treatment. Surely, someone living...

-PTI   The government’s flagship rural job guarantee scheme is innovative and has achieved quite high coverage but faces challenges like uneven implementation across states and “some evidence” of leakage of funds, a new World Bank report says. The study ‘Social Protection for a Changing India’ also says ensuring higher degree of awareness among people about the process of applying for work under the scheme and a strong monitoring and evaluation system...

Like the majority of India's children, the Right to Education (RTE) Act has completed its first year facing malnourishment, neglect and routine criticism. A year after it was notified as law, the right to elementary education remains a dream. The law provides a 5-year window to its implementation but the dream it legislates looks as elusive now as it did when this countdown started. While one important clause is facing...

-IBN   Despite India spending over two per cent of GDP in social protection schemes, their returns in terms of poverty reduction are yet to reach full potential, a World Bank report has said, pointing to "high leakages" in PDS and "uneven implementation" of MNREGA across states. The report, the first comprehensive review of India's social welfare and anti-poverty initiatives, said about 60 per cent of grains released by government under public...