NRHM needs to revitalise systems, monitor their functional performance and investigate their impact on the indices of health. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched in 2005 to bring about a dramatic improvement in the health system and health status of people in rural India. It seeks to provide universal access to health care, which is affordable, equitable, and of good quality. It aims at making architectural corrections to basic...

Is Madhya Pradesh the epicentre of malnutrition deaths? Recently, villages in the State’s Shivpuri district witnessed children of Sahariya tribe falling victims of malnutrition. Their names, according to the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC): Parant, Rajveer, Rajkumari and Sanni and they were all aged 3 years or below. The AHRC cautions that many more children like Ashiq, Kuldeep, Pawan and Malti from the same tribe are battling death due to...

In more ways than one the calendar year 2010 would go down the memory lane as a watershed year for the food and agriculture front in the country which recorded unprecedented growth rate of 4.4 per cent in July-September quarter but by December unprecedented price hike of essential food items especially left consumers in tears.   As the year comes to an end, an embattled government and the Union agriculture ministry stood...

“Conviction sets a dangerous trend for judiciary” It has ominous undertones: All-India Milli Council Three days after a Chhatisgarh court convicted Binayak Sen of treason and sedition, the sense of disbelief seems to be growing, with more and more members of the civil society joining in to protest the judgment and urging fellow citizens to start a campaign for the release of the paediatrician and civil rights activist. The voices were unanimous in...

A day after the Raipur Additional District and Sessions Court pronounced Dr. Binayak Sen guilty of sedition and conspiracy, human rights activists and his supporters staged a protest in the Capital. A small but determined group of people gathered at the Jantar Mantar on Saturday to condemn the sentencing of Dr. Sen and the “threat” to activism in the country. Various human rights organisations, including the Human Rights Law Network, the...