Health & Nutrition

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Dry land distress drives people to break stones in quarries

A lack of livelihood opportunities is compelling villagers of Vidisha district in Madhya Pradesh to take up jobs in local stone quarries, where unregulated work conditions are often extremely hazardous for their health

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Jaisalsar in Bikaner banishes child marriage from its homes

The villages in the desert of Rajasthan are notorious for child brides but groups of girls are now banding together to defy and upturn a long held tradition to assure a new and better future for themselves

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Interventions to stop child marriages raise hopes in Odisha

The practice of underage marriage is acute in the tribal-dominated southern and southwestern parts of Odisha, but interventions on the ground are planting the seeds of change among adolescent girls and their parents

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Breaking the norm of child marriage an uphill task in Uttar Pradesh

A detailed baseline study conducted in seven districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh shows that underage marriages are still widely prevalent, particularly in disadvantaged communities, and this practice holds back girls from realizing their full potential

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Palghar tribal village says no to child marriages

Despite a long-held tradition of marrying off girls once they reach 15 years of age, a tribal village in the underdeveloped area of Maharashtra has stopped the ill-advised practice of child marriage for the past two years

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Rural children in Tamil Nadu remain at risk from snakebites

An underreported tragedy, not enough is being done to contain and treat injuries and death of children in rural Tamil Nadu due to snakebites, although it affects around 15% to 19% of kids in the countryside

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Vadu women emerge as agents of change as health recorders

The regular recording to health-related data through computer tablets is helping in designing and implementing food, nutrition and healthcare interventions on the ground in several areas of Pune district

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Women continue to bear the burden of contraception

A trend analysis of the latest National Family Health Survey shows that women are compelled to be responsible for keeping family sizes small even as contraceptive prevalence rate declines in many states in India

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Women forced to bathe in the open in Odisha villages

A village-level analysis of availability of bathrooms in Odisha shows that not enough attention is paid to the clear and urgent need for secluded bathing spaces for women in rural areas

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Majra in the Aravallis sets cleanliness standards in Rajasthan

Not content with just building toilets, the village in Neemrana block of Alwar district has started implementing a solid and liquid waste management plan that includes segregation of trash at source

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Rural men must realize women need secluded bathing spaces

Women taking a bath in the open is a common enough sight in the countryside, which needs to change. For that to happen, it is important to change the mindset of men and their insensitivity towards the issue

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Opportunity cost of personal hygiene too high for rural women

Women in India’s villages still have to pay a high cost in terms of mental and physical pain and financial loss because they are often compelled to neglect personal hygiene by bathing hurriedly in the open

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Remote village in Karbi Anglong sets cleanliness benchmark

The young people of Shikdamakha in Assam didn’t wait for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to set standards in sanitation, which has today resulted in the village being one of the cleanest in the entire country

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Arsenic contamination in groundwater killing villagers in Ballia

High levels of arsenic in the water supply is afflicting many villages in eastern Uttar Pradesh but the government hasn’t been able to design and implement any program to contain the menace

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Impure honey eats into small producers’ margins

Independent and small beekeepers are uniting against adulterated and diluted honey sold in the domestic market by companies fighting a price war

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Malkangiri child deaths: disease or malnourishment?

The large number of children dying in Malkangiri district of Odisha has been officially attributed to Japanese Encephalitis and malaria but villagers and civil society organisations say that malnourishment has contributed to these avoidable deaths

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Integrated organic farming revives Nemmeli’s fields

A holistic method of organic farming has reversed the harm reached to Nemmeli village due to high-intensity, high-inputs agriculture. It has also helped in pushing back soil salinity

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Women are leading the sanitation campaign in Bihar villages

Although Bihar has been a laggard in implementing the Swachh Bharat program, there is heartening progress in places such as Rohtas, Sitamarhi and Khagaria, where women are driving the change for health and sanitation

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Tackling malnutrition in India needs thinking out of the box

If India has to improve its rank on the global Hunger Index, there has to be an emphasis on alternative and participatory approaches of delivering nutrients to underserved populations

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Is rural India headed for a demographic disaster?

An army of sickly and poorly educated children growing up in villages will continue to drag down the country as adults unless the nation’s nutrition and education delivery systems are made more efficient