New Delhi, Dec. 10 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday laid the ground for a coordinated pan-India effort to tackle cases of missing children by directing the ministry of home affairs (MHA) to appoint a nodal officer to coordinate with all states and Union territories for consolidating a central repository of data on missing children complaints, recoveries and cases pending prosecution in courts since January 2020. Passing the order in a PIL filed by a non-profit organisation Guria Swayam Sevi Sansthan which flagged the proliferation of inter-state crime syndicates behind the rising number of missing children cases across states, the top court directed the states and UTs to provide updated information for the past five years up to December 31, ...