The challenge is to acknowledge the inappropriateness of the current health education and delivery systems, and refashion health care delivery relevant for the country. The confluence of recent events is an opportunity to rethink health systems. The new Medical Council of India, the proposed Human Resources in Health Bill, the penultimate year of the National Rural Health Mission, preparations for the 12th Five Year Plan and the promise of a significant...

When Sujatha’s husband learned that she had conceived just five months after they got married, he became agitated over what he called her "ill-timed pregnancy". To worsen her husband’s anxiety, a test to determine the sex of the foetus showed she was carrying a girl. Sujatha, a public school teacher, and her husband, a civil engineer – who asked that their full names be withheld – are from well-off and educated...

-The United Nations   Millions of women worldwide continue to experience injustice, violence and inequality in their homes, the workplace and public life, according to a new United Nations report that calls on governments to take urgent action to ensure real equality between the sexes. “Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice” is the first major report by UN Women, the agency launched earlier this year to spearhead the world...

Women’s stepping out of their homes to work is often seen as a symbol of Empowerment. But what if girls and young women are first lured to work in factories on the false promise of decent wage, comfortable accommodation and payment of a lump sum amount at the end of 3 years contract, and then made to toil for pittance and their labour rights are violated? A report titled: Captured...

Andhra farmers shun growing paddy this kharif in absence of buyers, storage space Achanta, a small village in Andhra Pradesh, hit the headlines in 1967 with a record rice yield in the kharif or monsoon crop season. It was the time of the Green Revolution. N Subba Rao, a farmer from the village, harvested three tonnes of paddy from just one kilogramme of seeds. Other farmers followed suit and the village...