-Down to Earth A study conducted in public health centres in Uttar Pradesh shows complying to essential childbirth practices did not significantly alter maternal and perinatal mortality & maternal morbidity Despite improvements in the quality of care during labour and delivery, checklists and coaching interventions failed to reduce maternal and neonatal deaths during childbirth, shows a study published on December 14 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study was conducted...

-Livemint.com The government should put greater emphasis on behaviour change than construction of toilets In 2014, more than half of India’s population still practised open defecation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi set his government the goal of making the country open defecation-free in five years, by the 150th anniversary of M.K. Gandhi’s birthday in 2019, by launching the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA). Three years later, we are more than halfway into that period,...

-The Indian Express A citizen-centric data eco-system is necessary to protect privacy. Who owns my data? In this question, if you replace data with a physical object, like a car or a house, the answer would obviously be “me”. That’s true not only of physical objects, but also of content because the latter is governed by copyright laws. The principle is you are the owner of the content you create, such as...

-CaravanMagazine.in In mid 2011, Diane Coffey and Dean Spears, both visiting researchers at Economics and Planning Unit of Indian Statistical Institute in Delhi and also assistant professors at the University of Texas at Austin, moved to Sitapur, a district in Uttar Pradesh, to conduct a study on poor early-life health and process of stunting among many Indian children. While Coffey attempted to understand the challenges of raising a baby in the...

-Governance Now ‘They can’t convict Kalmadi, Vadra, Lalit Modi, Mallya; but will convict transparency advocates’ I am reminded of what my teacher had told me in school: “When a society wishes to blatantly show how unjust it can be, it will crucify the best.” On June 13 when I heard about the conviction of four of the nation’s transparency champions who have given their entire lives to promoting transparency and empowering the...