New Delhi: July 31, 2011

The Supreme Court has decried the tendency of men harassing or taunting their childless wives as if they alone are responsible for their (couples) not begetting a child and sometimes driving the women to suicide. A Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and C. K. Prasad said: “It is natural that everyone wants children, but if a woman does not have a child that does not mean that she should be insulted or harassed. In such a situation, the best course [for a couple] would be to take medical help, and if that fails, to adopt a child.

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Kushinagar: Jul 29 2011

A small decrepit building nestled in tall weeds watches over an abandoned compound; its doors rotting and walls consumed by spider webs. Till not very long ago, this three-room building used to be Kudwa Dilip Nagar’s health sub-centre. It still is, officially. Only it no longer serves the purpose it was supposed to: offer services for safe delivery to the village’s women. “The place was used as a delivery centre earlier, but for over one and a half years, it has not been used,” says Sankesar, who lives nearby. The Mother and Child Health section of the local PHC, which stands some hundred yards away, is not functional either.

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New Delhi: Jul 29 2011

Concerned about the plummeting sex ratio, the Union Health Ministry has now written to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (IT) to block websites relating to gender selection. The Health Ministry also asked the IT Ministry to block the websites promoting advertisements on gender testing techniques. “As the issue of declining child sex ratio is of utmost importance, a policy decision to block the websites that host advertisements /material relating to sex selection needs to be taken,” says the letter.

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New Delhi: July 27, 2011

After meeting with doctors, patients and Hindustan Times journalist in Indore, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has come out with its verdict on the newspaper's report on sex-change surgeries on babies: “No such surgeries have been performed.” In an indictment of HT's front page report dated June 26 which claimed that Indore doctors were changing baby girls into boys by the hundreds, the NCPCR team found that such surgeries are not medically possible, either in Indore, or anywhere else.

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New Delhi: July 26, 2011

The Supreme Court asked private hospitals to treat poor patients referred by “overcrowded“ government hospitals free of cost. These private hospitals include those which got land at subsidised rates and, as per the agreement, were bound to treat poor patients free of cost. In an interim order, a bench headed by Justice RV Raveendran said the hospitals would submit a scheme within 10 days to the Delhi government that would finalise a report and place it before the court after four weeks.

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Chennai: July 25, 2011

Health managers can soon map disease outbreaks anywhere in the State instantaneously and set in motion an emergency response to contain morbidity and mortality using a customised web-based GIS application. The application that helps online prediction and emergency management of vector-borne disease has been developed by a team at the Unit of Environmental Health and Biotechnology, Loyola College, in association with the Directorate of Public Health, under Rs.60-lakh project funded by the Ministry of Communication and IT.

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July 25, 2011

It’s a freshly whitewashed pink room of 10 X 8 sq ft, but the paint peels off at the touch of a finger. There is no electricity. There are no medical kits or emergency drugs in sight either. This is the room where a 21-year-old delivered a child after labour pains all night. In the past one year, this room — the “sub-centre” of Mahillo Ashapur — has seen 221 deliveries in all. One of the major aims of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) is to promote institutional and safe deliveries in order to bring down infant and maternal mortality rates. Sub-centres like the one at Mahillo Ashapur, just over four hours from Lucknow, are a part of that effort.

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Chennai: July 25, 2011

The ‘cradle baby' scheme, a brainchild of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, will be extended to Cuddalore, Ariyalur, Perambalur, Villupuram and Tiruvannamalai districts as the 2011 census has revealed a fall in the child sex ratio in these districts. Cradle baby centres will be set up at a cost of Rs. 47.45 lakh and each centre will have a superintendent, an assistant nurse, an assistant and other workers. The centres will have adequate stock of milk powder, medicine and clothes. Besides, cradles will be placed at hospitals, primary health centres and children homes to receive girl children.

Delhi: July 24, 2011

Conceptualised as a unique initiative to curb rising population, the colony, located near Loni, is today facing a population explosion. Never mind that it was supposed to be a locality of those who underwent vasectomy in exchange for a 50 sq yard plot of land. Residents are hardly bothered about the original idea of birth control that ostensibly created the colony. Instead, it has inadvertently turned into a thriving example of what not to do for population control.


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Hyderabad |July 24, 2011

Even as the Women's Reservation Bill continues to be bogged down with different political parties opposing certain provisions, a round table here adopted a unanimous resolution for the passage of the Bill in the Lok Sabha in its present form. With the Bill, already cleared by the Rajya Sabha, likely to be tabled in the ensuing session of the Lok Sabha, the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FAPCCI) organised a roundtable on the issue here. Women from various fields, who participated in the discussion, agreed that the only way forward was to first pass the Bill, mooted 15 years ago, without any further delay.