Leprosy has officially been eliminated in India, yet 130,000 new cases are diagnosed every year. Richard Cookson and Seyi Rhodes report on the plight of the patients shunned by society Narsappa was just 10 years old when he was told he had leprosy, but the news changed the course of his life forever. People in his Indian village immediately began to shun him and told his parents that he had to...

Taking note of the depleting Water table across the district, Gurgaon MP Rao Inderjeet Singh has asked local officers to identify Water bodies in the district which can be revived to recharge ground Water. The MP said: Under the Integrated Water Management programme, the Water bodies can be saved from vanishing. Singh, also the chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT, reviewed the progress of work under central and state government sponsored...

Amid technical and infrastructural constraints, Maharashtra has rolled out 1.2 million Aadhaars, but the beneficiaries have been able to make little use of these numbers Ashok Bhil, a 25-year-old graduate from Navalpur, 7 Km from Tembhli, is disappointed with the way the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is rolling out Aadhaar in Maharashtra. Last September, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government chose Tembhli, a small village in the predominantly tribal Nandurbar...

Taking a serious note of the increasing complaints of filling of ponds by land sharks, the state government has issued strict directives to the departments concerned to prepare a list of Water bodies and initiate measures for their renovation. Talking to media on Monday, principal secretary (revenue and relief) KK Sinha said the state government had issued directives to all districts to prepare a list of Water bodies on the basis...

The All-India Adivasi Mahasabha, on the first day of its three-day long conference here on Monday at the Talkatora Indoor Stadium, stressed the need to unite the diverse tribal communities from across the country to gain a voice in Delhi, as a starting point to controlling their own destinies – and their land, Water and forests. In his speech, Meghalaya Governor R.S. Moosahary told delegates: “Let us unite all tribal groups...