The report presents a mixed picture. Over the past 25 years, there have been notable improvements in child well-being in the group of countries examined in this report: steady decline in child mortality, overall reduction in adolescent suicide and increase in school completion rates. But the last five years have …
Heavy metals get deposited in the kidneys, liver and bones. They act as systematic toxins and disrupt metabolic functions of the body. Although most heavy metals are toxic, emphasis has been on lead all over the world. Lead pollution is, by far, the most common form of heavy metal contamination. …
Iranian authorities ordered elementary schools in Tehran to close on December 14, due to an alarming rise in air pollution levels in the city. For a long time, environmentalists had been warning about the increasing air pollution levels in the city. "I hope parents will advice their children to stay …
According to the World Health Organisation, about 31 million people in the world are living with 11IV or AIDS. Significantly, this includes-about one million children. In 1997, around 2.3 million people died due to AIDS, of which 1.8 million were among adults aged 15 and above. In 1995, about 75,000 …
Garbage dumps are the only source of livelihood for hundreds of poor children living in Phnom Penh. Scores of children can be seen atop heaps of foul-smelling wastes, competing with the municipal bulldozer to collect cans, glass, plastic and paper, which they sell for a living. Injuries and infections are …
Over half the children in Nepal are working as child labourers. Seventy-one per cent of them work as bonded labourers in rural areas while 52 per cent work as domestic help in urban areas. This was revealed by Renu Rajbhandari, president of the Women Rehabilitation Centre (WRC). She also said …
Kid's stuff The Internet simply abounds with stuff that can interest almost everybody, regardless of their age and aptitude. Children, too, can have a jolly good time on the Net, provided they log on to the right Websites. A great place to begin is Yahooligans at http://www.yahooligans.com/. This is a …
SEVERAL studies show how human breast milk is far superior to the much-advertised artificial milk formulae. Compared to infants fed on these, those fed on breast milk have lower rates of diarrhoea, ear infections and bacterial meningitis an infection that causes inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. In this …
BABIES born to mothers who live near hazardous waste landfill sites have a higher risk of serious birth defects, warns a European report. Women living within three-kilometre of a hazardous landfill site are more likely to have babies with nervous-system problems, holes in the heart and malformations of the large …
THE goal of universal education eludes India even though there is now a primary school in practically every village. The rate of dropouts continues to be over 50 per cent. The greatest casualty in the failure of our education system has been the girl child - whether in terms of …
The success story of education in Arunachal Pradesh has been narrated by Purer Haimendorf. The socio-economic and political strength which Arunachal tribes enjoy has no doubt been the rock on which the edifice was founded and on which it subsequently grew. The strategy they adopted was based on the residential …
Babies born in the Krugersdorp area could suffer severe lung damage or even die because of dust pollution from a nearby mine dump, says Vali Yousefi, spokesperson of National Department of Occupational Health (NDOH). According to Yousefi, the high quartz content in dust from a slimes dam in Kagiso Extension-8 …
ONE of the biggest threats that we face as we take the last few steps towards the new millennium is from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS. Spreading more rapidly than the proverbial wildfire, this universally-feared disease infects over 16,000 new victims every day. And in developing countries, the situation is …
On how she began her research about pollutants in the environment: My main interest has been in child neurology. I was interested in this area because a large number of children in Delhi are exposed to lead. When we have lead in low levels in the blood, that is around …
ONE CHILD in three is not registered at birth, leaving them without proof of identity or age that may deny them education, healthcare and even nationality, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The UNICEF says that a birth certificate is required for vaccination in at least 20 countries …
IT MAY not be possible to eradicate poliomyelitis from the world by the year 2000 unless adequate resources are mobilised in time, warn World Health Organisation (WHO) officials. Bruce Aylward, in-charge of the WHO Global Polio Eradication Initiative, says that only a few polio-endemic countries are left in the world. …
about a million Australians have apologised to the nation's 300,000 aborigines over a policy which saw generations of children forcibly separated for their parents. Up to one million people are estimated to have signed the 'sorry books'. The Aboriginal flag flew from the National Parliament building in Canberra. However, John …
it started off as a picnic. About 50 children in the 12-13 age group from schools in and around Delhi were taken on a boat ride down the river Yamuna on Saturday, May 2. The aim: sensitising the children to the state of the river that flows through the city …
There has been an alarming rise in cases of childhood cancers in the last two decades. According to reports in Environmental Health Perspectives and The Ecologist, this has been attributed to several environmental factors - prominent among them being the high levels of chemical pollutants in the environment. A number …
for the second time, I would like to draw attention to Social Watch , the annual report on social development presented by an informal network of international non-governmental organisations ( ngo s). This "social watchdog' appears to be quite successful in tracing whether governments fulfill promises they so elegantly make …
the Environmental Protection Agency ( epa ) may soon enforce anti-insecticide laws in the us . At risk are crops worth billions of dollars and the lives of children who may die from cockroach-related asthma and fire ant bites. Disease-carrying ticks may also multiply. Organophosphate is an insecticide that kills …
