-Hindustan Times A nutrition plan within the National Food Security Act meant for pregnant women and lactating mothers, a vulnerable group that skews India’s hunger indices, looks quietly buried. It still runs as a trial in 52 districts, two years after the landmark legislation was signed into law. The Centre hasn’t yet begun budgeting for it to expand the maternal health scheme to cover the whole country. While a parallel scheme under...

-Down to Earth Centres that host most of these vulnerable kids need immediate attention Every fourth child in India lives in urban areas. Also, in comparison to 2001, the number of children (0-6) in urban areas has increased by 10.3 per cent while in rural areas it has decreased by 7 per cent. According to a report, released by Save The Children, an international non-governmental organisation, in collaboration with research firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC),...

-Hindustan Times On World Population Day today, the ministry of health and family welfare should be congratulated for committing to enlarge the scope of contraceptive choices to rejuvenate the family planning programme in the country. This move fulfils the long awaited need for expanding the basket of choice in the public healthcare system. To deliver quality family planning services in a spirit of voluntarism and within a rights and accountability framework, the...

-Reuters Bibek Debroy, an Indian economist and member of a key government panel which formulates policy on social issues slammed the United Nations’ new development goals on Tuesday, saying that having so many goals and targets would drive governments “nuts”. World leaders are due to adopt a set of new development objectives in September, to replace eight expiring U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These will include objectives like ending poverty, reducing child...

-The Hindu ‘But it still remains home to one quarter of global underfed population’ India has halved its incidence of extreme poverty, from 49.4 per cent in 1994 to 24.7 per cent in 2011, ahead of the 2015 deadline set by the U.N,, shows the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report, 2015, released on Tuesday. The report set the limit for extreme poverty as those living on $1.25 or less a day. The reduction...