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 …
Fathers may be responsible for birth defects in their offspring (New Scientist, Vol 136 No 1843). Research using animal models suggests some miscarriages, birth defects and children's diseases can be blamed on the lifestyles and occupations of the fathers. Scientists thought sperm damaged by exposure to radiation or toxic chemicals …
POPULAR demand for informative and entertaining science fare is constantly rising. And, any doubts on this score would be dispelled by the public response to Doordarshan's recent invitation to write in and say what they would like to see on the extended transmission that becomes effective early next year. More …
PRIMARY schools with a difference have sprung up in some villages around the elite Rishi Valley School (RVS) in Andhra Pradesh. These satellite schools, started by the Rural Extension Centre (REC) of the RVS, use instruction cards, puzzles and games instead of standard text books to make education interesting. The …
SCIENCE may have conquered smallpox, but as far as AIDS is concerned, education may be a better weapon. According to WHO estimates, there are 10 million people infected with the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) worldwide. Two-thirds of the infected persons live in developing countries, of which three million are …
CREEPY, CRAWLY strands are not looked upon with gusto by children, however hungry. And, it took loads of icing sugar to make a test food supplement palatable to about 5,000 primary schoolchildren. They were fed high-protein spirulina algae as part of the noon meal in a programme evolved by the …
DOCTORS in Africa are debating whether severely anaemic children should be given blood transfusions because of the risk of their getting AIDS-infected blood. Researchers, however, have found ways to reduce the frequency of transfusions by 55 per cent without increasing mortality (The Lancet, Vol 340 No 8818). Severely anaemic children …
FROM VERY small children we receive an education which is very different from white children, ladinos. We Indians have more contact with nature. That's why they call us polytheistic. But we're not polytheistic... or if we are, it's good, because it's our culture, our customs. We worship -- or rather …
In 1981, there were 181.03 million illiterate females in India. By 1991, this figure reached 197.34 million -- an increase of about 16.31 million in just one decade. And, this occurred though the literacy rate for Indian females aged seven and above increased during the same decade from 29.75 per …
A SEXUALLY abused child is more vulnerable to vitimisation as an adult such torture in childhood, said Shodha Srinath, assistant professor at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences in Bangalore. Srinath was speaking at a seminar on child rape, organised in New Delhi by the National Commission …
The belief that more girls die of diseases because of neglect is not necessarily true, according to a study of measles in rural Senegal. The study suggests the severity of the disease is determined by the nature of infection and the sex of the person who transmitted it (The Lancet, …
"ONE BY one each of the girls answered my questions. What was their name and age? What do they do during the day? What do their parents do? Had they ever been to school and for how long? The children were remarkably articulate. Half of the children had been to …
AFTER discovering that babies are not as passive and helpless as they appear to be, adults are trying to figure out whether infants can do sums. In 20 years of research, it has become known that babies can differentiate and even tell if someone's lip movements match the speech they …
THE CHILDREN of Anna Nagar, a slum in New Delhi, draw crowds when they put on street plays they wrote themselves on socially relevant issues that range from the danger posed by multinationals to the evils of illiteracy. Kelewallah (banana vendor), is typical of their productions, telling as it does …
CHILDHOOD malnutrition may not have an influence on adult intelligence, states a study by the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) in Hyderabad. On the other hand, "the socioeconomic status of the family, especially the educational level, emerges as the most important factor influencing intelligence" (ICMR Bulletin, Vol 2 No 6). …
OXFORD researchers have found children are more likely to inherit asthma and hay fever from mothers than fathers. The gene responsible, found on chromosome 11, is only active when inherited from the mother. An international team of scientists, led by Bill Cook and Julian Hopkins, speculates that maternal inheritance of …
I WAS lucky that my childhood memories and later my life as a civil servant gave me insights into demographic behaviour. My boyhood recollection of an evening of listening to my father and his friends soon after the 1931 census results were published, left an abiding impression of the reasons …
Binod Bhattarai Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists Thapathali ,Kathmandu, P O Box 5143 Phone: 227691 Shree Govinda Shah or Hut Ram Vaidya Save Bagmati Campaign Tripureswor, Kathmandu P O Box 1155 Phone: 214600 Karna Shakya Nepal Heritage Society Bhadrakali Kathmandu, P O Box 1041 Phone: 211438 Anil Chitrakar Environmental Camps …
THE QUALITY of mathematics education in the land that produced the mathematical genius Ramanujam has fallen considerably over the years, if India's poor showing at the recent international maths Olympiad (IMO) in Moscow is any indication. But according to some educators, the fault also partially lies in the selection process …
THE RAPID deterioration of Nepal's environment has had one positive outcome -- the country's environmental NGOs have begun to take the threat to their country's eco-system more seriously. Even the membership of the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists increased by 50 per cent over the last year. One group, the …
FOR A change, it's the children who are the focus of a conservation programme that is inspired by the saying "We have not inherited the earth from our forefathers, but only borrowed it from our children". Anil Chitrakar, a Kathmandu-based engineer-turned-conservationist. is responsible for the movement to educate children -- …
