If recent indicators are anything to go by – the failure to keep food prices down, the proposed national food security Act, the failure to ensure even minimum wages to construction workers at projects for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, to recount a few – it seems the country has given up even the pretence of caring about its children or their crippling, unbudging state of malnutrition. Leaders,...
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Dividing children by TK Rajalakshmi
The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme has been conceived as a major intervention by the Central government to deal with the high rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, and malnutrition among women and children. The scheme essentially targets children in the age group of zero to six years and women in the reproductive age group. The problem is that the ICDS is seen as the success story behind...
More »Lack of clean water impacts children’s learning and health, UNICEF warns
Many schools in poorer countries lack adequate water and sanitation facilities, affecting children’s educations and even claiming lives, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warns in a new report. “Millions of children in the developing world go to schools which have no drinking water or clean latrines – basic things that many of us take for granted,” said Sigrid Kaag, the agency’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North...
More »Right to governance
This has to be the ultimate irony. Barely a few weeks after a Supreme Court committee comes out with a verdict that the public distribution system is bust and needs a drastic overhaul, the government clears a food security bill that seeks to push more food through this very same burst pipe. If newspaper reports are to be believed, the Congress president is not happy with even this and wants...
More »Tens of millions to benefit from India’s Right to Education Act – UN agencies
Three United Nations agencies are hailing what they described as a “ground-breaking” new act that legalizes the right to free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of 6 and 14 in India. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates there are eight million children in this age group, mostly girls, who are out-of-school in India. “Tens of millions of children will benefit from this initiative ensuring quality education with equity,”...
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