Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed a conference on ‘Leveraging agriculture for improving nutrition and health’ in New Delhi, organised by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), as part of International Policy Consultation. “Nutrition and health are issues are particularly topical today as the world faces rising food prices in many countries and there is growing recognition that climate change may endanger food security in many developing countries. Leveraging agriculture for...

Describing female foeticide as a “disgrace” to society, President Pratibha Patil has called upon the medical fraternity to ensure that diagnostic tests are not misused for pre-natal gender determination. “We have laws and legal provisions that specially prohibit medical practitioners from disclosing the gender of the foetus. It is not only illegal, but it is socially immoral and detrimental to society. It is very important that all medical facilities, doctors and...

High rate of infanticide and mortality call for social awareness and policy reforms While India leaves no stone unturned in its unrelenting quest for global economic dominance, it would behove it to pause for a moment and address the issue of infanticide and child mortality. In this detail the cup can be seen as half empty. A burning desire for male children in India, according to a member of the National Human...

The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act has in its four years faced many challenges in implementation, says a monitoring report. FIVE years ago, Parliament enacted a significant piece of legislation relating to women. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA), 2005, designed as a civil law, came into effect a year later, in October 2006. The fundamental feature of the Act was that it empowered magistrates...

The deaths of 18 lakh girl children in India in the past two decades have for the first time been linked to domestic violence against their mothers. After examining over 1.58 lakh births that took place between 1985 and 2005, an international team of researchers found that spousal violence against wives increased the risk of death among Female Children, but not male children, in both the first year and the first...