Investing first in the world’s most disadvantaged children and communities can save millions of lives and help spur progress towards achieving internationally agreed development targets, according to a new study by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The agency found that an equity-based approach, focusing on the needs of the most disadvantaged children, can be a cost-effective strategy to reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – eight targets that include slashing...

The discussion paper on compulsory licensing of patents will have achieved its purpose if it can lead to a proactive policy in the area of drugs and health. IN a proactive move to ensure a fair balance between protection of intellectual property rights and protection of the public interest, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has chosen to put out a discussion...

Without urgent global assistance to save the upcoming wheat-planting season in Pakistan, the food security of millions in the flood-hit nation is at risk, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned today. Severe flooding, which has affected some 18 million people in Pakistan, has inundated land half the size of Italy and wiped out much of the country’s household wheat seed stocks. Wheat-based flat bread is the main food for...

IN A remote corner of Bahia state, in north-eastern Brazil, a vast new farm is springing out of the dry bush. Thirty years ago eucalyptus and pine were planted in this part of the cerrado (Brazil’s savannah). Native shrubs later reclaimed some of it. Now every field tells the story of a transformation. Some have been cut to a litter of tree stumps and scrub; on others, charcoal-makers have moved...

The government is planning to put in place a more transparent mining policy by designating parts of mineral-rich regions as out of bounds for industry because of environmental concerns, a move that can avoid episodes such as the recent ban on mining at Niyamgiri in Orissa but could hurt expansion plans of companies located in such areas. The plan is to divide the country’s mineral-rich regions into so-called ‘go’ and...