-The Hindu In addition to ailments caused by poverty, salt pan workers across the country suffer from several occupational diseases, including chronic dermatitis, loss of vision and hypothyroidism In Adivasi Colony, a remote hamlet off the road from Vedaranyam to Kodikarai in Tamil Nadu, most of the adults in the 200-odd households work in salt manufacturing. They prepare salt pans manually, irrigate them with saline water which is three times saltier than...

-The United Nations From Ethiopia and Yemen to Bolivia and Viet Nam millions of children are today taking part in the sixth annual United Nations-backed Global Handwashing Day, driving home the message that the simple use of soap and water can slash highly preventable diarrhoeal diseases that kill 1,400 children under five every day. "Washing hands before eating and after defecation drastically reduces the spread of diarrhoeal disease and has far reaching...

-The World Bank Press Release WASHINGTON- The number of people living in extreme poverty around the world has sharply declined over the past three decades, but in 2010 it still included roughly 400 million children, or one -third of those living in such abysmal conditions, according to a new World Bank analysis released today that for the first time gives an in-depth profile of the poorest people in the world. The report...

-The Hindu The role of education in reducing poverty is widely recognised but our planners are yet to realise how the impoverished struggle with a learning process that is unresponsive to their needs In a society where poverty is far more common than prosperity, one would expect the implications of poverty for education to be widely recognised. What we find, instead, is that poverty is seldom mentioned directly in policy documents on...

-Outlook Bhubaneshwar: With the outlawed CPI (Maoist) targeting tribal youths living in dense forests and hills, Odisha government has asked departments to work out an integrated development plan for bridging critical gaps in infrastructure development and livelihood promotion of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG). The PVTGs which have been the target of Maoists included Boihor, Mankidia, hill Khadia, Juanga, Lodha and Paudibhuyan, Soura, Kutia Kondha, Dongaria Kondha, Lanjia Soura, Bonda, Diyadi and...