-The United Nations Some 15 million babies worldwide – more than one in ten births – are born too early, according to a new United Nations-backed report, released today, which calls for steps such as ensuring the requisite medicines and equipment and training health staff to promote child survival. “All newborns are vulnerable, but preterm babies are acutely so,” says Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who wrote the foreword to the report, entitled...

News coverage of the Aarushi case, Sachin in Rajya Sabha, and the revelation of the Bofors whistleblower added little to the discussion Have you noticed that the hilarious news spoof, The Week That Wasn’t (CNN-IBN) bears an uncanny resemblance to every day’s TV news/ discussions? We’ll call it, the news that wasn’t. News. And it goes something like this: Monday, Nupur Talwar, denied bail, was jailed in Aarushi and Hemraj murder cases. All...

-The Economic Times A parliamentary standing committee has taken a grim view of constant pruning of budget of agriculture ministry. It has asked the Centre to adopt a fresh outlook towards allocation of finances to the sector as it sustains economically weak farming community.  The parliamentary panel examining the demands for grants of agriculture ministry found that in the Eleventh Plan there was a wide difference between proposed budget estimate (BE) of...

Panel meets Mamata, seeks an action taken report within three months The National Commission for Women (NCW) has expressed deep concern over the reported case of sexual assault on a physically challenged minor girl allegedly by a medical professional at the Bankura Medical Hospital in West Bengal. “The case is extremely distressing considering that the victim is a person of special needs and she was under the care of a doctor, who...

On March 25, 2000, the Army and the Jammu and Kashmir police claimed to have made a breakthrough, killing five men they described as Lashkar-e-Toiba militants in what they called an encounter in Pathribal. These militants, the Army said, had been involved in the massacre of 35 Sikhs in Chittisinghpora five days earlier when then US President Bill Clinton was on his way to India for an official visit. The Army...