Two thirds of all maternal deaths occur in just 10 countries; India and Niger together account for one third of maternal deaths worldwide. India’s share of global total of maternal deaths is a staggering 22 per cent, according to the UNICEF’s newly released “State of World’s Children 2009.” (See the whole report in the URL below) India’s dismal record shows its low level of commitment in reducing maternal deaths that...

The S.C. and S.T. (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has failed to make Dalits any safer. THE ascent of the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to power in Uttar Pradesh on May 13, 2007, was seen as a defining moment in the politics of Dalit empowerment in the country. The Scheduled Caste (S.C.) leader of an avowedly “Dalit assertive” party had been Chief Minister earlier too, but the difference this time...

Women in developing countries will be the most vulnerable to climate change, a report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has warned. The agency said there was a disproportionate burden on those women and called for greater equality. They do most of the agricultural work, and are therefore affected by weather-related natural disasters impacting on food, energy and water, it said. Slower population growth would help cut greenhouse gas...

President Pratibha Patil on Tuesday called for enrolling women in a big way to make cleanliness a pivotal campaign in the rural areas and to build character and healthy habits among children. Addressing the winners of the Nirmal Gram Puraskars for the year 2009, the President emphasised on enlisting the active participation of women, self help groups, anganwadis and other women institutions for the success of the cleanliness crusade launched...

Ever since Gunnar Myrdal’s Asian Drama, which castigated India as a “soft state”, western observers, as well as many members of the Nehruvian wing of Macaulay’s children, have failed to understand the anarchical society which has existed in India for millennia. A recent review (Journal of Economic Literature, September 2009) by Lant Pritchett (a former World Bank official in Delhi) of Financial Times’ former India correspondent Edward Luce’s book In...