KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...

National Advisory Council member and former bureaucrat N C Saxena headed the four member panel which recommended that Orissa Mining Corporation (the company that was to supply bauxite ore to Vedanta’s Lanjigarh plant) not be permitted to mine on Niyamgiri hill. ET spoke to Mr Saxena a few hours after the environment ministry accepted his committee’s recommendations. Excerpts from the interview: What are the implications of today’s decision? Some sections of corporate India feel that laws such as...

National Advisory Council member and former bureaucrat N C Saxena headed the four member panel which recommended that Orissa Mining Corporation (the company that was to supply bauxite ore to Vedanta’s Lanjigarh plant) not be permitted to mine on Niyamgiri hill. ET spoke to Mr Saxena a few hours after the environment ministry accepted his committee’s recommendations. Excerpts from the interview: What are the implications of today’s decision? Some sections...

It’s a silent epidemic that we’ve never been able to put a finger on. In debates on food security, the issues of hunger and malnutrition have always been add-ons. But for millions, getting the next meal is the difference between life and death. Four-year-old Akash Sahariya can barely stand up. His bleached hair, distended belly and matchstick arms are harbingers of certain death that awaits him. He is the fourth...

Bengal has the largest proportion of teenage mothers in the country, according to a data sheet prepared by the family planning division of the Union health ministry. The grim statistics emerged on a day the Lok Sabha discussed ways to control population and some MPs found merit in Sanjay Gandhi’s iron-fist policy. But Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad hastened to say “once bitten, twice shy” to make clear forcible measures...