Each day, one thousand women die in childbirth and one million people become infected with sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including 7,000 cases of HIV. Yet these numbers are preventable, experts insist, when countries possess the resources and willpower to address and deal with them. Dignitaries and high-level officials gathered this week to discuss reproductive health commodity security (RHCS), or, simply put, ensuring that people have access to essentials of reproductive health...

PRONAB MONDAL TRAVELLED TO THE DENSE FORESTS OF JUNGLE MAHAL IN WEST MIDNAPORE TO FIND OUT HOW MAOISTS ARE USING THE RESPITE FROM POLICE OPERATIONS NOT ONLY TO REGROUP BUT ALSO TO LAUNCH DEVELOPMENT WORK TO WIN OVER THE IMPOVERISHED VILLAGERS Scene I: A small, one-room building with an asbestos roof in the middle of a forest in West Midnapore’s Jungle Mahal. Inside, a man sits at a table with a...

A report from a sample survey of the functioning of the public distribution system in 12 villages in two districts in Orissa, a state usually associated with a poor PDS. While there are errors in exclusion and inclusion of households covered, there has been a vast improvement in operation of the PDS; below the poverty line households seem to be receiving their entitlements. The households also express a strong preference...

India is the worst among the six top Asian economies when it comes to the representation of women in the workforce at junior and middle-level positions, according to the Gender Diversity Benchmark for Asia 2011 report. “It performs only slightly better than Japan at senior level positions,” said the report released by Community Business, a non-profit organization focusing on diversity and inclusion in Asia. The report surveyed women at different levels across...

The flawed Bill on food security has not received the kind of publicity that the Lokpal Bill has, but that does not diminish its significance. “THIS government has divided everything and everyone. There are different cards for different sections of the poor. If my employer, taking pity on me, gives me an old television, I am not entitled to a yellow card [Below Poverty Line card]. My son who is...