The worse off the poor become, the healthier our Ministers get. Air India might not be doing as well we'd like it to. But the braveheart who flew it fearlessly into dense clouds of debt is doing okay. Praful Patel (who no longer holds the aviation portfolio) added, on average, over half a million rupees every day to his assets in 28 months between May 2009 and August 2011. This might...

NCM orders compensation for boys framed in Mecca Masjid blast case Four years after the Andhra Pradesh police picked up 21 Muslim boys and wrongly accused them of involvement in the Mecca Masjid bomb blast, there is finally some hope that they can resume normal life without the stigma of terrorism. The hope comes via the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), which recently made four key recommendations to the State government. A...

-The Associated Press   She waited 1 1/2 hours at the hospital, only to see a nurse who yelled that she was "lying about being in labor." Three hours later, her baby was born dead. Another woman gave birth on the street, steps away from a clinic that twice turned her away, saying her time had not come. Several other women interviewed by Human Rights Watch said their legs were pinched and faces slapped...

-The United Nations   The United Nations agency mandated to spearhead the global response to HIV/AIDS today welcomed the new license agreement between the Medicines Patent Pool and the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences to increase access to antiretroviral therapy in developing countries. The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said the agreement marks the first time a pharmaceutical company has signed an agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool, describing it as a turning...

Boommi Gowda used to fear the night. Her vision fogged by glaucoma, she could not see by just the dim glow of a kerosene lamp, so she avoided going outside where king cobras slithered freely and tigers carried off neighborhood dogs. But things have changed at Gowda's home in the remote southern village of Nada. A solar-powered lamp pours white light across the front of the mud-walled hut she shares with...