The poor health indices and health care in rural India have always been met with lofty ideals sans action; they demand urgent and radical solutions.  The recent proposal to introduce a new medical course, Bachelor of Rural Health Care, has been met with resistance from many sections of the medical fraternity. Its opponents argue that it will result in second-class health care for rural India and increase the rural-urban divide....

Much of the daylight robbery in the name of Commonwealth Games has been justified in the name of "National Prestige" and "World class aspirations. Whether all these surreptitious measures will eventually deliver the games is an open question? The Commonwealth is a 'friendly' association of those 72 colonies which were once part of the British Empire and rose to free nationhood - some through protracted struggle and others through negotiation. In...

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is supporting a new anti-child marriage movement in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, where nearly half of all girls become child brides and one-third become teenage mothers even though the legal marriage age is 18. “We need to have a zero-tolerance policy towards child marriage, so that every child, boy and girl, has the opportunity to live their childhood and gain an...

Says conditions cited by the Centre are not applicable to the State  State fears it will affect flexibility of schemes Contends that workers do not need intermediaries THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State government is understood to have expressed to the Centre its reservations about the move to rope in non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for implementing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the State. Official sources told The Hindu here that the State...

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) will stage a dharna in Lucknow and Allahabad on Saturday (February 13) to demand the release of human rights activist and organising secretary of PUCL, Seema Azad. Ms. Azad and her husband, Vishwa Vijay were picked up by the Uttar Pradesh police from the Allahabad railway station on February 6 when they returned from New...