No matter how tired we are in the course of a difficult day’s work, there is always the reassuring feeling that at the end of the hard work we’ll go back to sleep in the comfort of our home. But there are millions of people in our cities who simply do not have a home. The homeless of our cities suffer the most; yet they are the most neglected. No...

IT WAS a windfall five years ago that taught Panchali Satyavva the power of a lie. It happened one Monday afternoon in Someshwar village of Nizamabad district in Andhra Pradesh. It was raining in sheets and she had just placed a bucket under the steady trickle of water from the roof of her hut. Two men were at her door, holding umbrellas and offering her an unsolicited Rs. 5,000. They...

The fasting Telugu Desam Party president, N. Chandrababu Naidu, was forcibly shifted by the police to the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) in the early hours of Monday, but he continued his indefinite hunger strike from the hospital bed. In spite of a significant deterioration in his health, the 60-year-old Mr. Naidu said he would not call off his protest till the demands of farmers were conceded. After he was...

Terming as “very serious” the diseases suspected to have been caused by the use of Endosulfan in the Plantation Corporation of Kerala's cashew estates in the district, the National Human Rights Commission has recommended setting up a multi super-specialty hospital here to treat the victims. The health situation arising out of the use of Endosulfan on the PCK land is very serious and all agencies, including the government, people's representatives and...

Appreciating the country's commitment towards universalising health coverage for the people, health economist Robert Yates has said the country needs to increase its public spending on health either by health insurance schemes or taxation.“The entire exercise of constituting a high-level expert group on universal health coverage that India has undertaken has been done at an appropriate time when the economy is growing and the country is getting wealthier as a...