-The Hindu Lower stunting among children with mothers who had access to free school lunches, shows data from 1993-2016. Girls who had access to the free lunches provided at government schools, had children with a higher height-to-age ratio than those who did not, says a new study on the inter-generational benefits of India’s midday meal scheme published in Nature Communications this week. Using nationally representative data on cohorts of mothers and their children...

-The Hindu The Uttar Pradesh government should understand that evidence backs the principle of informed free choice Many of us working in the field of public health and social development have been taken aback, if not downright shocked, by the recently announced draft Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilization and Welfare) Bill, 2021 that focuses exclusively on making a two-child norm a law, specifying various incentives and penalties for contravention. The burgeoning negative...

-Press release by United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner GENEVA (16 July 2021): UN human rights experts* today called on India to halt evictions of some 100,000 people – including 20,000 children – that began this week in the midst of monsoon rains. Demolition of homes began on Wednesday, 14 July, in a village in Haryana State built on protected forest land, even though the forest was actually destroyed...

-Scroll.in Even as the RTE Act has ensured 25% reservation for economically backward students, the lack of internet access has resulted in dropouts. Over the past one-and-a-half year, the prolonged closure of schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic has reversed the educational gains made in the last decade. This is especially relevant to socially and educationally disadvantaged children who gained access to education in private schools through the quota for them under...

-The Hindu They advocate inter alia ‘rebalancing of exams’ — focus on assessing application A survey by the Oxford University Press (OUP) of science teachers in 22 countries on their respective national science curricula found that fewer than half of the respondents (46%) believe that the science curriculum in their country prepared children for the future. Only 31% of teachers surveyed said science education was fit for the future. In India however, 80%...