Nearly 65% of adults in the Arab region remain excluded from formal financial systems, according to a new report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). The Annual SDG Review 2025 paints a sobering picture of persistent financial exclusion that is undermining the region’s ability …
Oct. 29: City health researchers have found an environmental and genetic link to endometriosis. Endometriosis is associated with chronic pelvic pain and irregular monthly cycles. It is also one of the major causes of infertility in women. It affects about 15 per cent women of child-bearing age. The city team …
NARAYAN BARETH Sriji Ka Kheda is now practically a village of widows. Falling under Bhilwara district, the village has 60 houses and 70 widows. Most of their husbands lost their lives working as labour in quarries and dying of silicosis. "It is a very sad story. Most of the widows …
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which entitles rural households to 100 days of casual employment on public works at the statutory minimum wage, contains special provisions to ensure full participation of women. This paper, based on fieldwork in six states in 2008, examines the socio-economic consequences of the nrega …
Without doubt, climate change will affect us all but the most vulnerable are women who could actually play a large role in curbing the effects of climate change. Yet they remain invisible in any decision-making effort. In every society women and men have gender roles but with climate change the …
With each UNFCCC meeting, one is apprised of the galloping pace at which climate change is affecting the planet. Extremes of weather and natural disasters have become commonplace, with devastating floods in Africa and Asia, extreme cold or heat waves in Europe and the spectre of hurricanes in the Americas. …
For most women in Punjab, dinnertime means heading to the kitchen to begin making chapatis. But things have changed in Fazilka. At dinnertime, they dress up just that little bit and are out of their homes with kneaded flour as they head for the neighbourhood chulha. Here, they bake their …
Even as the central government is giving impetus to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) by renaming it the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, single women feel that the scheme is not benefiting them. The point came out today during a discussion here on the occasion of …
The decision by the union cabinet to raise reservation for women from one-third to 50% of seats at all three levels of panchayats is a welcome one. However, this decision was taken without addressing the problems caused by mandatory rotation of reserved seats, which women have been drawing attention to …
Joint Forest Management in the village Barwani which comes under Timarni tehsil and Timarni development block. The village is a forest village under range Rehatgaon.
The Decentralisation Community of Solution Exchange, an initiative of the United Nations in India, provides a platform for increasing our understanding of local governance both rural and urban-through knowledge sharing and collaboration. This article is a summary of one of the discussions held on the Decentralisation Community.
This document presents the achievements of the CDRF project, to enhance community resilience. In particular, it refers to the community owned and managed funding mechanism piloted and evolving to resource innovative solutions by grassroots women
Banana is a common horticultural crop in the Sunderbans region though there are hardly any cultivation of proven commercial elite varieties that can yield much higher incomes per unit of area under the crop. Keeping in mind the promise that banana holds as a cash generating crop for the Sunderbans …
These guidelines are an outcome of CDRF pilot initiative started in 8 states in India. CDRF has been conceived to direct funds directly to local-at-risk communities to support them in initiating and scaling up effective disaster risk reduction and adaptation practices, and in developing the necessary relationships with local and …
While REDD presents opportunities for positive social outcomes, it also brings risks of serious negative outcomes. The current discussions on REDD mechanisms and impacts have paid little attention to the gender differentiated impacts of REDD, in terms of the increased vulnerability of rural women to its negative consequences and the …
More than 3 million children < 5 years of age die each year from environment-related conditions, making the environment one of the most critical contributors to the > 10 million child deaths annually throughout the world [World Health Organization (WHO) 2005]. Some factors of susceptibility, including race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic …
The Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows that worldwide progress in reducing hunger remains slow. The 2009 global GHI has fallen by only one quarter from the 1990 GHI. Southeast Asia, the Near East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean have reduced hunger significantly since 1990, but the …
PLANT SCIENCES Never too late Flowers are more resilient than they appear. They shoot up against all odds. The credit goes to genetic matter called microRNA that inhibit protein formation crucial to flowering in young plants. External cues like sunlight make them flower. But in the absence of cues, too, …
THE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF THE SEA by O P Sharma, Oxford University Press, Rs 795 The law of the sea has undergone more changes in the last 60 years than in the past 100. This book deals with some of the changes. The author analyzes concepts like ocean governance, the …
