-IPS News RAYAGADA- The deafening din of the lunch gong is sweet music to the 200-odd tribal girls rushing down the stairway, clutching stainless steel plates and tumblers. Sikhsya Niketan (House of Education) in Chattikona administrative block of Rayagada district is a residential school meant exclusively for girls of the Dongria Kondh tribe in eastern Odisha state. The school is part of the federal government’s intensified efforts to take universal education to...

-Frontline A study finds that institutional support alone cannot help reduce maternal mortality in India.  THE high rate of maternal mortality in India has been a cause for national concern, especially on account of the focus on reaching the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Although there is a growing realisation that it will be difficult to meet the MDG targets by that deadline, there is a renewed interest in the...

-The United Nations A United Nations treaty which provides a set of international standards to improve the lives of millions of domestic workers worldwide has now been ratified by a second Member State, the Philippines, allowing it to come into force next year, the world body announced today. The Convention on Domestic Workers, which states that workers around the world who care for families and households must have the same basic labour...

-The Hindu The fireworks that light up the night sky during Diwali bear no trace of the hazardous working conditions in their place of origin: Sivakasi and its surrounding villages in southern Tamil Nadu. The tragic death of nearly 38 workers and onlookers at a fireworks unit in Mudalipatti village on Wednesday is another gruesome reminder of the dangers lurking behind small-scale cracker factories that neglect laws and rules in the...

-The Hindu The Planning Commission’s draft 12th Plan for health has attracted much debate and controversy. Critics have been quick to direct their attention at two issues in it — the proposed increase in government health spending from one per cent to 1.58 per cent of GDP, and the “managed care model.” The spending increase was rightly felt to be grossly inadequate to move India towards achieving universal health care. The...