-DNA The report says India is off course on meeting reduction targets for stunting, anaemia, adult overweight, obesity and diabetes. Yet another global report pointed out India’s worrying performance on various health indicators. India has had consistent Poor rankings for stunting and wasting in children under five years of age, anaemia in women and diabetes in adult. The Global Nutrition Report 2016, ranked India 114 for under-5 stunting out of 132 countries,...

-NDTV New Delhi: The severe drought that has gripped the countryside was no flash in the pan; when the monsoon of 2015 recorded Poor rainfall, it should have set the alarm bells ringing for policymakers at least a year ago. So what exactly did the Centre do to tackle the crisis? To seek answers, NDTV filed a series of Right To Information or RTI applications in key Central ministries meant to tackle drought,...

-NDTV Gumla (Jharkhand): For a public hearing on the National Food Security Act in Jharkhand’s Gumla district, conducted by activists in the presence of government officials, 75-year-old Jasmati Lohrain walked over four kilometres in the searing heat. The hearing, attended by over 500 villagers in Gumla’s Bharno block, was her only chance to get government officials to hear about her problems. Ms Lohrain is a widow; her four sons died in a...

Although public goods are meant for everyone to enable living life with human dignity, certain groups are systematically deprived to access them, says a new report from the Centre for Equity Studies -- a NGO based in Delhi. Put differently, not all sections of the society are able to access or enjoy public goods and services on an equal footing, despite social justice being one of the key provisions of...

-Business Standard Large green patches, apart from recorded forests, to get protection. Clarity to help industry In a move that is expected to have far-reaching consequences for protection of forests while ensuring ease of doing business for mining sector, realty sector and industry, the Union environment ministry has defined what constitutes a forest under the Forest Conservation Act 1980 (FCA). The legal definition, pending since 2006, will help in identifying areas where development...