An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...

The state government has sought technical advice and assistance on its proposed plan to carry out mass vaccination ahead of monsoon next year in Gaya and adjoiNINg districts to stop outbreak of Japanese encephalitis and acute encephalitis syndrome. Sanjay Kumar, the secretary of the state health department, said the state was keen on going for a mass immunisation and regular immunisation for Japanese encephalitis as a preventive measure next year. “We...

The return of peace and normalcy in Kashmir is a reality. And to ensure a durable and lasting peace, a humane approach to handle the law and order situation may be required. In a vibrant, democratic country, authoritarian ways of suppressing people’s voices prove to be counterproductive. It may be recalled that the law and order situation in Kashmir worsened in the aftermath of unfair and rigged assembly elections of 1987,...

Three lives have been lost while several others had a narrow escape in fireaccidents that have so far claimed 16 night shelters between last year and now. In the latest incident, a night shelter was destroyed in a fire early on Saturday morNINg leaving a NINe-year-old girl charred to death. Worse still, like every year, the state government is scrambling to put in place a winter plan for the city's...

-PTI PlanNINg Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Sunday conceded that he went wrong while projecting moderation in inflation which remains near the double-digit mark. "It is true that we were hoping that this (moderation in inflation) will happen earlier, to that extent our credibility becomes a question," he told in a interview for CNN-IBN's TV programme 'Devil's Advocate' when asked why government's repeated projections on inflation proved false. "You should recognise...