-DNA   In an attempt to curb high infant and maternal mortality rate in India, the government has decided to launch scheme from June 1 to provide free healthcare to mothers and children. The Central government has asked the states to ensure free and cashless services to all pregnant women in government hospitals as well as to sick neonates. This includes free drugs, free consumables and diagnostics, free diet during stay and free...

Selective abortion of girls in India prevented about 4.2 million to 12.1 million girls from being born between 1980 and 2010, with the largest number of girls being aborted in the 1990s, a latest survey has shown. Selective abortion of girls, especially for pregnancies after a firstborn girl, has increased substantially in India. Most of India's population now lives in States where selective abortion is common, says the study “Trends in...

-The Telegraph   India’s gains in literacy and prosperity are, contrary to expectations, driving an increase in the number of female foeticide cases with selective abortion after a first child highest in wealthy, educated households, says a study released today. The study by a team of Indian and Canadian researchers has shown a steep decline in the ratio of girls to boys in India when the first-born child is a girl. And...

-The Hindustan Times   Rich and educated Indian parents are increasingly aborting a second girl child and instead waiting for a boy, driving 90% of the country’s citizens into zones with sex ratios that are unnaturally and often dangerously low. The sex ratio for second-born children in families where the first-born is a girl has dropped overall from 906 girls per 1000 boys in 1990 to 836 in 2005, new research published in...

The National Advisory Council has proposed a framework for the National Food Security Act. But its potential could be wasted by a flawed approach to the PDS. Two years have passed since the Central government announced that a draft National Food Security Act (NFSA) would be posted on the Food Ministry's website “very soon.” After prolonged deliberations, a detailed framework for this Act has recently been proposed by the National Advisory...