At a time when the world celebrates Mother's Day, it turns out that India scores poorly among the middle-income countries when it comes to health care and well-being of mothers. The country is ranked 73 in the list of 77 nations rated for the "best place to be a mother", according to a report by child rights organisation 'Save the Children'. What is more shocking in the 'State of the...

Wheat prices started showing a downward movement today after an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by FM Pranab Mukherjee okayed the release of an additional 30 lakh tonnes of wheat and rice for the poor, over and above the current PDS allocation, for the next six months. The most-active wheat contract was reportedly trading around 0.60% lower at Rs 1,158.40/qtl on the back of fresh selling in anticipation of...

It has quickly adapted itself to open information culture: experts  “Indian Act seems to have emerged from grass roots; Pakistan's an executive initiative” Very little RTI awareness among common people in the region India's success with getting the Right to Information Act up and running came in for much praise on Wednesday at a regional workshop organised jointly by the Indian Institute of Public Administration and the World Bank-funded Governance Partnership Facility. The...

How did your trip to Niyamgiri and Vedanta’s mining project there come about? I’ve been a human rights, social justice and environment protection advocate for the last 30 years. I am the founder and chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation. I also love India and have a long relationship with this country. Many people know this. This is why Action Aid approached me to meet Sitaram Kulisika, a tribal...

Study based on better data, more sophisticated statistical methods Among poor countries progress varied considerably The improvements represent “hope at last” For the first time in decades, researchers are reporting a significant drop worldwide in the number of women dying each year from pregnancy and childbirth, to about 342,900 in 2008 from 526,300 in 1980.The findings, published in the medical journal The Lancet, challenge the prevailing view of maternal mortality as an intractable...