-Newsclick.in In a report to the UN General Assembly, Philip Alstom urged a rethink by governments as also multilateral bodies, like IMF and World Bank, and even parts of UN. Widespread privatisation of public goods in many societies is systematically eliminating human rights protections and further marginalising those living in poverty, according to a hard-hitting new report. The report was transmitted to the UN General Assembly on 19 October. Philip Alston, the UN...

-United Nations The world’s population is set to grow by 2.2 billion between now and 2050, the UN said on Wednesday, and more than half of that growth - 1.3 billion - is likely to be in sub-Saharan Africa, where women’s rights are hampered by limited access to Healthcare and education, along with “entrenched gender discrimination”. Monica Ferro, Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Geneva, said the trend globally is...

-TheWire.in Most of the ‘reforms’ that are being introduced to address poor delivery of social services are silent on the issue of inadequate human resources, among other shortfalls in capacity. The poor performance of the public sector especially in education, Health and other social services has been the subject of a lot of debates in the last few decades. The dominant narrative has attributed implementation failures to corruption, lack of accountability, poor...

-The Hindu Business Line The gel, poly-Oxime has been prepared by InStem researchers from nucleophilic polymer New Delhi: Indian farmers usually do not wear any protective gear while spraying chemicals in fields. This exposes them to harmful toxics contained in pesticides, causing severe Health impacts and even death in extreme cases. Indian scientists have now developed a protective gel to address this problem. The gel can be applied on skin and can break...

-Livemint.com The production of ‘mahua’ is finally entering the formal economy as new initiatives seek to upscale this indigenous drink, selling it across the country and even the globe It is a cloudy morning in Nangur village in Bastar district, Chattisgarh. It is a settlement of a little over 400 families, considered fairly large in these parts. We make a bumpy journey down a narrow, unpaved road intermittently shaded by sargi (sal)...