-The Indian Express Innovation in vaccine production can have an impact only if it is accessible to all. Patents and access to life-saving drugs has always been an emotive and contentious issue. The right to healthy life is a moral minimum, and to find a rational basis to deny it is deeply offensive to the idea of life itself. At the same time, pharma corporations and institutions claim patents are a just...

-The Indian Express The data released by unicef notes that more than 888 million children worldwide continue to face disruptions to their education due to full and partial school closures. As many as 1.5 million schools remained shut during 2020 due to the pandemic and lockdowns, impacting 247 million children enrolled in elementary and secondary schools in India, according to data released by unicef Wednesday. “Online education is not an option for all...

-The Hindu/ PTI Online education is not an option for all as only one in four children has access to digital devices and Internet connectivity, the study says. Closure of 1.5 million schools due to coronavirus pandemic and the resultant lockdowns in 2020 impacted 247 million children enrolled in elementary and secondary schools in India, a unicef report has found.  Globally, schools for more than 168 million children have been completely closed for...

School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...

-Down to Earth UN agencies urged governments to prioritise school reopening More than 39 billion in-school meals were missed globally during the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic due to school closures, according to a new unicef report. Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly 370 million children have not been receiving a school meal in 150 countries, said the report by unicef Office of Research and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)...