Only 12% of India's 355 million menstruating women use sanitary napkins (SNs). Over 88% of women resort to shocking alternatives like unsanitised cloth, ashes and husk sand. Incidents of Reproductive Tract Infection (RTI) is 70% more common among these women. Inadequate menstrual protection makes adolescent girls (age group 12-18 years) miss 5 days of school in a month (50 days a year). Around 23% of these girls actually drop out of school after...

Since 1947, successive governments have missed innumerable opportunities to put the country on the path of sustained, inclusive growth. Time and again, quixotic ideology has led to meaningless debates, antediluvian policy and inexplicable strangulation of capacity buildup in both physical and social infrastructure. Even today, while the gap between current and projected national demand and supply is well acknowledged, the government continues to drag its feet in creating the policy...

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has said recreating Nalanda University would not be easy and that it needed a scientific attitude and disciplined thought and the inspiration for this could come from old Nalanda itself. At the Indian Science Congress in Chennai today, Sen said: “The meeting here gives me an opportunity to recollect the pursuit of science in old Nalanda which will inspire and guide our long-run efforts in new Nalanda.” Sen...

The Indian government is exploring a proposal to reduce the limit on foreign direct investment (FDI) allowed in the pharmaceutical industry through the automatic route to 49% from 100% amid concerns over the takeover of local drug makers by overseas firms. Officials from the ministry of commerce and industry and the ministry of health have had multiple rounds of discussions on the proposal following a note written to them by the finance...

There has been a gross simplification of the issues involved in the exposures in the Radia tapes on the lack of integrity among mediapersons. In order to understand how exactly journalists really function it is necessary to understand the overall context in which they operate and clarify some of the persistent myths about what the profession is all about. Four myths in particular need to be dissected: That it enjoins...