Girl child survival is skewedeven in those areas of northern India having limited access topublic health facilities and modern ultrasound technology asfamilies ''neglect'' them to ensure there are few survivors,says a new study. Since families can not know the sex of the foetus dueto lack of technology, girls born in these areas facesystematic healthcare neglect, specially in poorer communitiesto ''dispose them off'', says the study. Allowing the umbilical cord of the newly...

High rate of infanticide and mortality call for social awareness and policy reforms While India leaves no stone unturned in its unrelenting quest for global economic dominance, it would behove it to pause for a moment and address the issue of infanticide and child mortality. In this detail the cup can be seen as half empty. A burning desire for male children in India, according to a member of the National Human...

Many endosulfan sufferers in Kerala still not recognised NARAYANA Vokalliga from Belur village in Kasaragod breathed his last on November 20 just as his son was explaining how his father had suffered from exposure to endosulfan for 30 years. The former employee of the Plantation Corporation of Kerala used to spray the toxic pesticide manually in the corporation’s cashew plantations at Nanjamparamba estate. When the corporation switched to aerial spraying, Narayan prepared...

The Kisan Swaraj Yatra, a rally of farmers marching from Sabarmati in Gujarat to New Delhi, reached Jaipur on Thursday. Participants appealed to chief minister Ashok Gehlot to cancel the MoU that the state signed with Monsanto India Ltd, saying the agreement was anti-farmer. The Kheti Virasat Mission's Kavitha Kurunganti, who is among those leading the rally, claimed the government was surrendering famers' interests over seeds to profit-oriented multinational companies. The...

The issues relating to the victims of endosulfan, sprayed in the plantations of Kasargod district in Kerala, have snowballed once again. “Earthworms emerged from the soil, and, subsequently, died. Then birds came to eat the earthworms and they died as well.”   “Some termites were killed in a cotton farm sprayed with endosulfan. A frog fed on the dead termites, and was immobilised a few minutes later. An owl which flew over...