In Vijaypura village, marginalised women, especially widows, have used the RTI tool to procure food grains under PDS and are living a healthy life. The movement, instigated by a young RTI activist, boasts of achieving the millennium goal of reducing hunger by half in the region. It was from the state of Rajasthan that the Right to Information (RTI) movement emerged as an idea that went on to capture national...

Michel D. Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund (GF) to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, arrived in India on Tuesday to get greater Indian support and funding for global health spending ahead of the United Nations millennium development goals (MDG) summit in New York. While he signed agreements with some new partners and promoted community-ownership of projects, Professor Kazatchkine's primary task is to meet top government officials and the Union...

Despite some movement in primary education, assured rural employment and access to potable water, India continues to lag behind in realising the millennium development goals (MDGs) set for 2015 by the United Nations, a new report says. Persistent inequalities, ineffective delivery of public services, weak accountability systems and gaps in implementing pro-poor policies are major bottlenecks to progress, said the country report on India pertaining to the millennium development goals. It...

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...

We need to make sure nutrition is not easily neglected. And that means putting pressure on leaders throughout society to focus on nutrition. I have just finished a trip to India to help contribute to the efforts on ending malnutrition. The politicians and media were talking about the sparkling new economic growth and development figures. There was no such attention given to the “other” growth and development figures — those related...