While Indian psychiatrists have rejected a world health organisation (WHO) study portraying India as the depression capital of the world, they say it has indirectly drawn attention to an acute shortage of trained personnel and facilities to deal with mental illness. "Declaring India as having the highest rate of major depression in the world is an aberration in interpretation," Dr. Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, secretary-general of the World Association of Social Psychiatry,...

Studies by the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Academic Forum on food security issues in the three countries suggest that providing food access works best when backed by cash transfers. A paper on food security brought out by the UNDP’s Brasilia-based International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG), under the Forum, shows that despite the great strides in food production made by India people in this country are just not eating enough. Citing indices...

Anna Hazare's campaign may lead to a new Lokpal Bill, but it has legitimised middle-class vigilantism and other kinds of civil society mobilisation. NOW that Anna Hazare has declared victory, it is time to take stock of one of the most powerful recent mobilisations of people in India, focussed on influencing policy or lawmaking processes. The victory, however, is largely symbolic. The original demand of the movement, carefully built around Hazare's...

-Rediff.com   Despite a significant increase in women and child healthcare in India, more than nine lakh children in the country still die every year before becoming one-month-old, says a new global report. The study, conducted by experts at the world health organisation, Save the Children and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is said to be the most comprehensive estimate to date, covering all 193 WHO member countries and...

-The Economist   The number of deaths among babies is declining The first 28 days of life are among the most vulnerable in a human’s existence. In 2009 3.3m children died before they were four weeks old, down from 4.6m in 1990, according to a new  paper from the world health organisation. However progress has been too slow to meet the fourth of the UN's Millennium Development Goals—to cut child mortality to one-third...