-The Indian Express The labour contractor demanded Rs 1.4 lakh for the 10 people who were paid in advance but slipped away. Bhubaneswar: Nilambar Dhangdamajhi, a 22-year-old tribal farmer from Kalahandi district, whose right palm was chopped off by a labour contractor in December 2013, died last evening. Dhangdamajhi, suffering from an unknown fever for last few days, passed away at his home in Nuaguda village of Kalahandi’s Jaipatna block. His wife...

-IndiaSpend.com It was raining heavily last monsoon when Heerabai’s youngest child, Seshkumari, 4, collapsed with a fever. The family could only watch helplessly as her temperature soared and she turned delirious late night. The nearest primary health centre for Pachkol, Heerabai’s village in Chhindwara district in south-west Madhya Pradesh, is 25 km away. And every monsoon, the swollen Bhagbhel river floods the road linking the village to the health centre. If you...

-The Indian Express At simultaneous zeniths of their cycles this monsoon, chikungunya appears mild but causes a scare by spreading beyond the south. This year’s robust monsoon has come at a price: a zenith in the dengue and chikungunya cycles. Spiralling cases of both diseases have sent alarm bells ringing and the “season” has only just begun. Chikungunya, which has never really been a big worry in the north, has struck Delhi strongly...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The dengue-chikungunya crisis is severely straining health services in the capital. Top public and private hospitals, flooded with patients, have turned waiting areas, patient lounges and non-emergency wards into fever wards. But the influx of patients is so high that not everyone is being admitted. As per municipal data, 487 dengue and 444 chikungunya cases have been recorded this year. However, major public and private hospitals...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: More than 400 cases of chikungunya were recorded in Delhi in the past week, health officials said on Monday, as the mosquito-borne disease that causes debilitating joint pain threatened to replace dengue as the Capital’s most widespread monsoon ailment. Officials said 412 new cases of chikungunya were reported last week, taking the total this year to 432. The same period saw 176 new dengue cases, taking the number...