Adding to the debate over celebrity economists blaming India’s malnutrition and stunting vis-à-vis Sub Saharan Africa on genetic differences, Dean Spears, a public health expert and a visiting fellow at Delhi School of Economics, offers evidence connecting our poor sanitation and open defecation with high morbidity and malnutrition. (see both links below). In an evidence-based paper titled Policy Lessons from Implementing India’s Total Sanitation Campaign (2012), based on the review...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The plan to give tablets, laptops and Smart Phones to babus as part of the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry's proposal to set up a social media cell has hit a major hurdle with Planning Commission objecting to the scheme. While the plan to buy costly gadgets has raised eyebrows, the proposal to have a separate social media wing, independent of the existing Press Information Bureau...

-Outlook New Delhi: Around 90 per cent of nurses and 50 per cent of operation theatre technicians employed in various Delhi hospitals use their mobile phones while assisting surgeries, apart from 10 per cent of doctors who check SMSes during the procedure, a study claimed today. The three-month survey by the Heart Care Foundation of India (HCFI) was conducted on 87 family physicians from across Delhi, besides 25 nurses and operation theatre...

-The Hindu Business Line Plans start from Re 1/day to hook those who have never logged in via smartphones Mumbai: Telecom operators are going the sachet way, launching low-cost packs to hook the new cell phone-Netizen. From one rupee a day to Rs 25 for seven days' usage, telecom service providers are coming up with novel plans to attract mobile Internet users. Aircel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India have launched, or are launching,...

-The United Nations The rapid growth of developing countries is propelling millions out of poverty on an unprecedented scale and radically reshaping the global system, according to a flagship United Nations report launched today. “The rise of the South is unprecedented in its speed and scale,” says the Human Development Report 2013, which uses the term “South” to mean developing countries and “North” to mean developed nations. “Never in history have the...