Page 27 - Social Issues

Why paternity leave works

When men share the responsibility of child care, women find it much easier to return to their jobs after a pregnancy

Ayushman Bharat Yojana is limited, Delhi Health Model is wide: Manish Sisodia

Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, on Friday said that the "Ayushman Bharat Scheme is very limited while the Delhi Health Model has a wider scope".Addressing a press gathering here, Sisodia said, "As per Ayushman Bharat Yojana if you own a fridge, a vehicle, or a phone, you cannot avail the benefits of the scheme. There are other conditions that make the scheme limited to only a handful of people."The Delhi government's health scheme, however, has no such limitation, he said. "The only condition to get treated under the Delhi Health Model is that you live in Delhi and are sick. Ayushman Bharat gives you a cover of only Rs 5 lakh, there is no such limit in our health model. Treatment is free and medicines are also free."Sisodia's remarks come after Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal wrote a letter to Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan asking him about details of NDA's flagship health protection scheme. "If any good thing in Ayushman Bharat is missing in Delhi's health scheme, we

Woman, hailing from Bihar, commits suicide in Delhi

A 26-year-old woman, hailing from Bihar, allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the terrace of a building following an argument with her husband in southwest Delhi's Ghitorni area on Friday, police said. The woman, a homemaker, had a fight with her husband on Thursday night following which, she took this extreme step, the police said. The incident happened around 6 am on Friday. The police have not found any suicide note on the woman or from her house. According to a senior police officer, the woman got married around four-and-a-half years ago. She was reportedly harassed by her husband, a tailor, and his family as the couple did not have a child, the police said. The family of the woman has been informed and they are heading towards the national capital, they added.

Kejriwal rejects Ayushman Bharat, says Delhi has better health care

Declining the Central government's offer to implement the Ayushman Bharat health scheme, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday wrote to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, saying the city government is "offering ten times bigger and comprehensive health scheme".

3.3 million people have fled Venezuela crisis: UN

An estimated 3.3 million people have fled the crisis in Venezuela since the start of 2016, including one million who have left the country since November, the United Nations said Friday. "The pace of the outflow from Venezuela has been staggering," the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a joint statement. Economically-devastated Venezuela is suffering from shortages of food, medicine and other essentials amid a power struggle between President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, who has been recognised as interim president by more than 50 countries including the United States. American actress and UNHCR goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie will travel this weekend to a Colombian region on the Venezuela border "to assess the humanitarian response to exodus," the agency said. Colombia is hosting about 1.3 million people displaced from Venezuela, the most of any country, followed by Peru, Chile and Ecuador. The joint UNHCR-IOM

First Athens mosque to open by September: govt

Greece's leftist government on Friday said an official mosque in Athens, over a decade in the making, would open by September to satisfy a longstanding demand by tens of thousands of Muslims in the capital. "We hope the first prayer will be in September," Education Minister Costas Gavroglu said after inspecting the nearly-completed complex that can accommodate some 350 people. The mosque's imam, Zaki Mohammed, said construction had been completed but staff required for its operation would be hired after national elections on July 7. Athens is the only European capital without an official mosque. The project began in 2007 amid strong opposition from the influential Orthodox Church of Greece and nationalist sentiment against neighbouring Muslim Turkey. Greece was under occupation by the Ottoman Empire for centuries. There have been several laws passed on creating an official mosque in Athens since 1890. Supervised by the Greek state, the minaret-less mosque is situated in the ...

Kerala Social Welfare Minister meets Irani, discusses 'Smart Anganwadis'

Kerala Minister of Health and Social Welfare K K Shailaja on Friday met Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani here to discuss the establishment of 'smart anganwadis' in the state.According to the minister, these smart anganwadis will be useful in prioritising the physical and mental growth of children."Earlier, the Child Development Centre (CDC) of Government Medical College Hospital had submitted a report to Kerala government regarding the establishment of 'model anganwadis' across the state," she said."During the meeting with Irani, we have discussed the impact of such advanced facilities that would bring in the personality development of children," she said.Irani has extended her support to the plan and also opined that such plans should be implemented across the country, she added."I have requested the minister to release the fund -- Rs 1.83 crore, which has been pending against the period of 2018-19, for the working of anganwadi training centres in the state. I .

Outcome Budget helped us in bringing reforms: Sisodia

Calling the Outcome Budget the Delhi government's "biggest achievement", Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday said the AAP government was able to bring reforms in the city because of this budget.

'Gandhi cycle rally for peace' organized in Riyadh

The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia organised a "Gandhi cycle rally for peace" in Riyadh on Friday to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Nitish Kumar reviews law and order situation in Patna

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, on Friday, reviewed the law and order situation in the state and directed that contingency funds should be released and pending cases should be disposed off at priority."Today the CM reviewed the law and order situation of the state, the CM directed that police patrolling across the state should be increased and senior officers should review it. The CM also directed that police stations should be upgraded and contingency funds should be released, pending cases should be disposed off at priority," Home Secretary of Bihar government, Aamir Subhani said.Gupteshwar Pandey, DGP of Bihar, said, "The police manual needs to be changed, every police station will have two additional SHO, one will look after law and order and the other will only look after investigation. We are going to start the orientation program to improve SHO attitude and behaviour."Bihar Chief Minister had recently expanded his Council of Ministers with the inclusion of eight new ...

AAP govt's health scheme "ten times bigger" than Ayushman Bharat: Kejriwal to Vardhan

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Friday wrote to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, saying the Delhi government's health scheme is "ten times bigger and comprehensive" than the Centre's flagship Ayushman Bharat programme. Kejriwal said if the AAP government's health scheme is closed and the Ayushman Bharat is implemented in Delhi, it will be a loss for the citizens of the national capital. The AAP chief's comments come a week after Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had said that the AAP dispensation would not implement Ayushman Bharat scheme in the city as it seeks to provide equitable treatment to all residents here. Jain had also said if the Centre's Ayushman Bharat - Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) is so good, why people from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are "forced" to seek treatment in government hospitals in Delhi. His comments came days after Harsh Vardhan wrote to the chief ministers of Delhi, Odisha, Telangana and West Bengal, urging them to join the Centre's ...

Women LGBT at high risk of substance use

Women who find themselves in the LGBT category are at a heightened risk of drug abuse which becomes visible around the age of 13, reveals a new study.The findings published in the Journal of LGBT Youth added that the odds of substance use among females who identify as sexual minorities is 400% higher than their heterosexual female peers."We saw this striking difference in substance use at age 13 and there was a rapid increase in the rate of cigarette and alcohol use from there," said Sarah Dermody, the lead author.Among youth, alcohol, marijuana and nicotine are the three most commonly used drugs.Past research has shown that sexual minority youth reported nearly three times more substance use than heterosexual youth. This disparity may be due in part to stress from discrimination, violence and victimization rooted in their sexual minority status, Dermody said.The pattern of increased substance use for youth saw a rise in the cases of women.Using data from about 2,200 participants, a ..

Lack of abortion access troubles Guam's 1st female governor

Lourdes Leon Guerrero vigorously defended abortion rights as she campaigned to become the first female governor of Guam. She won, but now no doctors are willing to perform the procedure she fought so hard to defend. The last abortion provider in the heavily Catholic U.S. territory retired in May 2018. That's forcing women seeking to end their pregnancies to fly thousands of miles from the remote Pacific island a costly and sometimes prohibitive step. "I truly believe that women should have control of their bodies," Gov. Guerrero, a former nurse, told The Associated Press in a phone interview Thursday. "I'm very sad and very nervous about what's happening across the nation." Several conservative states like Alabama and Missouri have passed tough abortion restrictions as they take aim at the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion across the United States. Guam's law , which Guerrero described as "very restrictive," allows abortion, but doctors also have the legal right to deny

WH still moving forward with tariffs on Mexican imports

The White House has said that it was still planning to impose tariffs on all Mexican imports on June 10 as talks with Mexican officials over immigration continued.

Sanaullah case: Gaurav Gogoi requests Shah to take cognizance of the issue

Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi has written a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking his intervention in the matter of retired Army officer Mohammad Sanaullah."Sanaullah was in service during the Kargil War. In 2014, he was given a medal by President of India. But now he has been kept at a detention camp. Injustice has been done to him. I request Amit Shah to take cognizance of this matter and help provide justice to the Sanaullah and his family," Gogoi told ANI here.He added, "If more such reports will come out, then people will lose trust in the NRC. Will Sanaullah give 30 years of his life to the Army if he is an outsider?"Sanaullah's family has alleged that he has fallen into a trap of 'conspiracy', and moved the Gauhati High Court after he was sent to a detention centre for illegal migrants.His advocate Aman Wadue claimed that the case against the retired Army officer is "fabricated" as he was on a counter-insurgency operation in Manipur at the time police said to have ...

Hong Kong Markets shuts for Dragon Boat Festival on Friday

Asian stocks traded mixed on Friday as traders awaited a key U.S. jobs report and the outcome of further tariff negotiations between the Trump administration and Mexico. Japanese shares were little changed, Korean shares slipped while Australian stocks advanced. Markets in Hong Kong and China are shut for holidays.

China Markets shuts for Dragon Boat Festival

Asian stocks traded mixed on Friday as traders awaited a key U.S. jobs report and the outcome of further tariff negotiations between the Trump administration and Mexico. Japanese shares were little changed, Korean shares slipped while Australian stocks advanced. Markets in Hong Kong and China are shut for holidays.

Trump mulling over declaring 'new emergency' for imposing tariffs on Mexico

United States President Donald Trump is planning to declare a national emergency for slapping new tariffs on Mexico over the flow of migrants into his country, according to a draft document.The new emergency is necessary due to "the failure of the Government of Mexico to take effective action to reduce the mass migration of aliens illegally crossing into the United States through Mexico," the document said.Last week, Trump had threatened to impose a five per cent tariff on all Mexican goods, which would increase by another five per cent every month and ultimately reach 25 per cent by October, The Hill reported."The United States Government has repeatedly asked the Government of Mexico to take responsibility and help reduce this mass migration. Yet the Government of Mexico has failed to take sufficient action to alleviate this problem, has allowed this mass incursion to increase, and has failed to secure its own southern border," the draft document said.Representatives of the US and ...

BMW opens $1 billion plant in Mexico

German automaker BMW AG on Thursday officially opened a $1 billion plant in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosi.

US praises Kazakhstan over Uighur rights

The United States on Thursday praised Kazakhstan for not turning back Uighurs fleeing neighboring China, which has rounded up an estimated one million people from the mostly Muslim ethnic group. David Ranz, a US diplomat in charge of Central Asia, pointed to Kazakhstan as an example as he addressed a symposium in Washington on the mounting human rights concerns in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang. The United States is "grateful" to Kazakhstan "for resisting Chinese pressure to forcibly return Uyghurs and other members of Muslim minority groups back to China," said Ranz, an acting deputy assistant secretary of state. "We urge all countries to provide this protection, to allow them access to asylum, and allow these individuals to travel to third countries of their choosing, as Kazakhstan has done," he told the event organized by Uighur rights groups and George Washington University. Kazakhstan, which has sought warm relations both with China and the United States, has been placed .