-The Hindu ICDS is the world’s biggest mother and child nutrition and care programme It is an early spring morning. We are walking deep inside hilly country in Karnataka’s Malnad region. When the monsoon comes, rainfall will be intense in these parts, and will continue for many months. This is coffee terrain. With the great tall trees above us, and the plantation ahead of us, we have been walking on this narrow path...

-The Hindu Govt. data for 2012-2015 recorded 11.54 lakh new jobs The number of net jobs created in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector in the last four years stood at just 3,32,394, which is 13.9% higher than the base four years ago, according to a CII survey of more than one lakh companies. The findings for the four-year period — beginning 2015-16 — pale in comparison with that from the...

-The Hindu Trees in plantations, private lands should not come under it, says expert panel A high-power committee constituted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has recommended that forest surveys — the biennial exercise by the government to estimate forest cover — explicitly demarcate trees grown in forests from those grown outside, that is, in plantations and private lands. Currently, the government counts both towards estimating the portion of...

-The Hindu Better education is not leading to better job opportunities, marriage prospects or freedom of movement Abigail Adams, wife of the second President of the U.S. and mother of the sixth President, wrote to her husband, “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion.” As last year’s #MeToo movement and Sabarimala protests showed, perhaps Indian women are echoing her and are...

-The Hindu Do UN strategies to deal with sexual harassment and ensure gender parity offer examples to follow? For more than a century, March 8 has marked International Women’s Day — a global day celebrating the achievements of women and promoting gender equality worldwide. But as we pause to celebrate our many advances, we must also acknowledge how much remains to be done. Interlinked issues Two interconnected issues have emerged as priorities over the...