-The Hindu One in five women who die during childbirth globally belong to India: WHO Bad roads, poor connectivity and unavailability of transport at night continue to force more than one- third of Pregnant women in Jharkhand to deliver at home. “More than 80 per cent of these women who deliver at home are unable to arrange for transport to reach a healthcare facility,” noted a study, conducted by Public Health Foundation of...

-The Telegraph The Centre has made it mandatory for clinics as well as radiology and diagnostic centres to register ultrasound tests of all Pregnant women through an online form. The requirement under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique (PNDT) Act is part of efforts to curb female foeticide. The decision to track all pregnancies — from conception to birth — was taken at a recent meeting of the central supervisory board (CSB), a...

-DNA Mumbai has more undernourished children under the age of five than the whole of urban Maharashtra. Experts say malnutrition is prevalent amongthe slum dwellers, migrant labours and the city’s minority communities. A recent report on malnutrition, titled ‘India’s nutrition crisis: A challenge of putting nutrition back in our food’ by Narotam Sekhasaria Foundation, an NGO, reveals that more than half of the country’s upcoming generation— children under four years of age...

-The Times of India Changes in laws dealing with sexual assault approved by the Cabinet define "position of authority" to include social, political and economic dominance over a victim of rape - parameters wide enough to encompass most forms of exploitation. The fine print of Thursday's Cabinet decision also retains an important caveat to making 18 the age of consent with an exception being made -- with reference to Section 375 of...

ASHAs will continue to bear the burden of the government's rural health mission as a new order lists more incentive-based services. On May 31, a Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare order listed additional incentivised duties for accredited social health activists, or ASHAs, but was silent on the issue of regularisation of their employment. ASHAs, who bridge the gap between the rural population and the nearest health care outlets under...