Just over five years ago, a global study had labelled India the world’s “lone polio exporter”, prompting the United Nations secretary-general to write a letter of concern to Manmohan Singh. Even three years ago, anti-polio workers in western Uttar Pradesh, then the disease’s epicentre in India, were often abused and driven away when they came to the villages for the vaccination programme. Such memories today flooded into the minds of doctors and...

-The Times of India Income tax officials on Friday carried out searches at various premises of Delhi-based businessman and defence dealer Suresh Nanda, including at the Claridges hotel owned by him. Nanda had temporarily shifted his residence to Claridges but on the day of the raid he slipped out in a similar fashion like in 2007 when a raiding party failed to lay their hands on him. Sources said he has left...

-PTI Anna Hazare and his team on Thursday met the Election Commission in a bid to raise the pitch for electoral reforms and demanded that the 'right to reject' option be included in electronic voting machines. Hazare, along with his close associates Santosh Hegde, Prashant Bhushan, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi, discussed the matter for about an hour with Chief Election Commissioner S Y Qureshi. According to Team Anna, the meeting was "very...

No one will deny that the least a democratic government can do for its people in a civilised society is to ensure access to food at affordable prices. Ensuring food security is, therefore, a fundamental responsibility of the state. Public distribution system (PDS) is the instrument through which food grains are made available to targeted beneficiaries. Government's resolve to provide for food security is laudable.  At the same time, it does...

A village wedding in Madhya Pradesh stood out for one reason on Tuesday: the groom had chosen to go ahead with the marriage after learning the BRIde had been raped two days earlier. The groom, a Class XII dropout and farmer, told this newspaper that it was his duty to stand by the BRIde and fight her battle for justice together. “It is a testing time for her for no fault of...