While the landmark Right to Education Act takes the promise of primary education to more than eight million children, there are still many lacunae on the ground. But, as the Shiksha Adhikar Yatra, conducted by Dalit organisations in UP and Rajasthan showed, citizens now have the tools to demand and receive effective governance.  The landmark right to information act has made a huge impact at the local level on the...

Why is Madhya Pradesh ranked so low in the millennium development goals like child and maternal mortality, extreme poverty, hunger and safe drinking water? Social sector allocation has increased only during the last few years. Before 2005, there wasn’t enough money allocated to it when compared to poverty alleviation schemes. Also, it takes time for the benefits of the allocations to reach people and for real change to manifest itself....

Governments risk failing some of the world's most impoverished and vulnerable groups unless human rights are put at the centre of efforts to eradicate poverty, Amnesty International warned on Wednesday. In a new report looking at how to strengthen the millennium development goals [MDGs], the organization highlights how key targets fall short of existing international human rights standards. The report, From Promises to Delivery, outlines crucial steps governments can take to deliver...

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called for concerted efforts to end what he described as the “scandal” of women dying in childbirth, saying even simple clinical procedures such as clean delivery rooms and the presence of a trained midwife could greatly reduce pregnancy-related deaths. “Some simple blood tests, consultation with a doctor and qualified help at the birth itself can make a huge difference,” Mr. Ban said in an address to an...

At the beginning of this millennium in year 2000, 189 countries and 23 international health agencies had pledged to reduce child under-5 mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-fourths by 2015. These were called the millennium development goals (MDGs) number 4 and 5. With only five years left for the target year, a clutch of international health agencies and NGOs have come out with ‘‘Countdown to 2015 — Decade...