“That space on the wall, that is the cradle, the first stop to the Unique Home,” says a playful four-year-old girl pointing to a shelf built into the boundary wall of the home. An alarm is set off when a newborn girl is placed there, marking the beginning of celebrations on the arrival of yet another addition to Parkash Kaur's Unique Home at Jalandhar in Punjab. Mother of 60 adopted girls,...
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A New Name For Nakushi by Swatee Kher
Maharashtra has been struggling with a declining child sex ratio and is ranked among the five worst states in the country. The reasons are the same as elsewhere: preference for a male child. But in a shocking indicator of how extreme this desire is and how deep-rooted the bias against the girl child can get, scores of families across Maharashtra have simply named their daughters ‘Nakushi’ or ‘Nakusha’—meaning ‘unwanted’ in...
More »GM crops have not lived up to their promises, say NGOs by John Vidal
Genetic engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the use of chemicals and the growth of “superweeds,” according to a report by 20 Indian, southeast Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation groups representing millions of people. The so-called miracle crops, which were first sold in the U.S. about 20 years ago and which are now grown in 29 countries on about...
More »Who will pay for malaria vaccine? by Sarah Boseley
Malaria is a mass killer, taking just under 800,000 lives a year. Most of them are babies and children under five. A significant number are pregnant women. It is an entirely preventable disease, caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquito bite, but the millions who live under its curse are too poor and have too few options to be able to avoid it. The malaria vaccine [ See: “Malaria vaccine partly...
More »Sibal frets over RTE rollout delay
-The Times of India HRD minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday expressed concern about the failure of big states in implementing the Right to Education Act. He was speaking at the state education ministers' conference on chalking out a community mobilization programme for RTE. "It will be a historic failure, if we have passed the Act but not implemented." Sibal said. So far, 20 states have notified RTE rules. However, big states like...
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