With three small children to raise in a dirt-poor village in eastern India’s Bihar state, farm labourer Renu Devi is an unsung rural supermom who shuttles between home and field every day. But the demure 30-year-old mother does not forget to bring her children to the biannual Vitamin A rounds in Bagwanpur Rati, one of the villages in Vaishali district of Bihar. This is because Vitamin A deficiency is a major...

An efficient delivery system is essential to keep up the achievements made by Kerala in the social sector over the decades, Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said on Saturday. "Kerala has achieved remarkable growth in life index compared to many other Indian states. Now it is important that these achievements are maintained by improving the delivery system," he said, inaugurating an international conference on Reaching out to people: Achieving Millennium Development...

Some 350 million people living in rural areas being lifted out of extreme poverty in the past decade, according to The Rural Poverty Report, published by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a United Nations (UN) agency. However, in spite of this, more than a billion people around the world still continue to suffer. The UN describes extreme poverty as living on less than $1.25 (80p) a day. But factors such as...

Global agriculture contributes in the region of 17 percent to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, but according to the World Bank, climate smart agriculture techniques can both reduce emissions and meet the challenge of producing enough food for a growing world population."As much as agriculture is part of the problem, it is also part of the solution," said Inger Anderson, the World Bank's vice president on sustainable...

companies could have a big impact in the fight against climate change, according to a United Nations report released today.“Waste and Climate Change: Global Trends and Strategy Framework” – prepared by the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) International Environmental Technology Centre – says the waste sector is particularly well placed to cut its contribution to global man-made greenhouse gas (GHG) and even become an emissions saver.The report recommends reducing the amount...