-The Hindu     Focus attention on pregnancy and first two years of child's life Stunting can be contained by focussing attention on pregnancy and the first two years of a child's life, a new UNICEF report has said. Stunting is not only about a child being too short for his or her age. It can also mean suffering from stunted development of the brain and cognitive capacity. The report offers evidence that real progress is...

-PTI Women in India are more likely to get prenatal care when pregnant with male babies, according to a groundbreaking study that has implications for girls' health and survival in patriarchal societies. The study by Leah Lakdawala of Michigan State University and Prashant Bharadwaj of the University of California, San Diego, suggests sex discrimination begins in the womb in male-dominated societies such as India. "It paints a pretty dire picture of what's happening,"...

-PTI Colombo rejects U.S.-backed resolution, says it is "replete with misrepresentations" on the current situation; 25 countries vote in favour, while 13 nations including Pakistan vote against India was among the 24 countries which backed a U.S.-sponsored resolution on Thursday at the U.N. Human Rights Council against Sri Lanka asking it to conduct an "independent and credible" probe into allegations of human rights violations, an issue on which the DMK pulled out...

-Outlook Instead of playing a leadership role, the Manmohan Singh government has surrendered all political initiative internationally to the US and the EU countries and locally to parties such as the DMK, motivated by political opportunism Is there a neo-LTTE emerging nearly four years after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was wiped out in May, 2009, by the Sri Lankan security forces? That is a question that needs the...

-Groundviews.org Nearly four years since the end of the country’s civil war, Sri Lanka remains a divided, post-war society, as the ethnic conflict burns on. It has been fifteen months since the Final Report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) was made public. In July 2012, the GoSL released an Action Plan to implement the LLRC recommendations, yet little progress has been made on this front. Instead, a host of...