A study questions the efficacy of conditional cash transfer schemes in promoting the girl child. IN an attempt to address some of the serious imbalances in society, specifically the gender imbalance, the Central and State governments have embarked on several short-term conditional cash transfer (CCT) schemes in the past decade and a half. While the Central government is convinced about the efficacy of the schemes aimed at arresting the distorted sex...

Even wealthy children show signs of poor nutrition in some Indian states, according to a new report on child malnutrition from a non-government organisation released by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today. The report, based on a survey across 100 districts in six states with poor child development indicators, has shown that child malnutrition is widespread — 42 per cent of children under five years of age are underweight, and 59 per...

-PTI   Highlighting that 42 per cent children were underweight in a country witnessing high growth, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today described it as a national shame and said the government could not rely solely on ICDS, a programme for early childhood development, to address it.  "...The problem of malnutrition is a matter of national shame. Despite impressive growth in our GDP, the level of under-nutrition in the country is unacceptably high," he...

-The Indian Express   While Madhya Pradesh government is making all efforts to make the 'Surya Namaskar' exercise on Swami Vivekanand's birthday here tomorrow, a world record, Muslim leaders have opposed the move by issuing a fatwa against it. Leaders of the minority community have termed the move as un-Islamic and equated it with idol-worship, which is prohibited in Islam. They also issued a fatwa in this regard on Tuesday which was also...

Manmohan calls new report's findings a ‘national shame’ A new study based on a survey of the height and weight of more than one lakh children across six States has found that as many as 42 per cent of under-fives are severely or moderately underweight and that 59 per cent of them suffer from moderate to severe stunting, meaning their height is much lower than the median height-for-age of the reference...