-The Hindu With the HIV/AIDS epidemic showing signs of reversal globally, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and countries are now working towards zero new HIV infections, zero deaths from AIDS-related illnesses and zero discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS. To achieve this goal, the WHO has emphasised the need for people to learn about their HIV status, and for greater effort to reach and support young people and men who have sex...

-Outlook Malda (West Bengal): Four more children died at the Malda College and Hospital, taking the total number of crib deaths since Saturday last to 27. While three children died this morning, another died last night, hospital sources said today. The cause of the death was malnourishment, underweight, and premature birth, they said, adding they were admitted to the hospital in very critical condition. Most of the children who died in the hospital were...

-The Hindu A recent survey in the Sunderbans region of West Bengal reveals an alarming trend of rising mental health problem among women Everyday, when Badal, a sturdy young man of Sunderbans returns home at dusk, he finds his mother, Kamala, sitting placidly in the verandah, staring into the distance with strangely unseeing eyes. The house, otherwise, is abuzz with activity. His daughter is bringing in the cows, his sons are clamouring...

-The Indian Express As the 2015 target for achieving millennium development goals adopted in 1990 approaches, the time has come to take stock of various countries’ performances and identify areas that need more attention. The Unicef recently released a report which categorically stated that India will not be able to achieve the goal of an under-five mortality rate (U5MR) of 42 by 2015. The report further stated that only six of...

-The Indian Express Earlier this month, the police in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district claimed to have found in a remote forest village two 10-year-old girls who “narrated tales of their sexual exploitation by Maoists”. Following their account, the police arrested suspected Maoist Kudiyami Gujja and a few other rebels. Gujja was paraded before the media where he admitted that he regularly “took away 10-12-year-old girls and raped them”. The parents of the girls...