Health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra today pushed through the Assembly a bill that will allow “half-doctors” to practise in villages, steamrollering a demand from the Left Front and the Opposition to defer the legislation. The West Bengal Health Regulatory Authority Bill will permit “rural health practitioners” with a three-year diploma to treat patients in villages where qualified doctors are loath to go. The “health practitioners” will not be called doctors, the...

For about a week after the Dubai crisis broke, international financial markets chose to ignore it. Stock-markets climbed, commodity prices rose and the dollar continued to be beaten down. It is not too difficult to explain this initial indifference. For one, the magnitude of the Dubai crisis appeared piffling, at first glance, compared to the “subprime” crisis or the meltdown following “Lehman’s bust”. When global banks had run up losses...

There is every sign that India is launching into a period of rapid urbanisation. In the next 30 years, an additional 350 million people will have to be accommodated in our existing towns as well as in brand new urban spaces. Given our inability to cater to even the existing urban population, there are serious concerns about our ability to deal with the influx. Are we entering a world of...

The convulsions that have gripped the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) — India’s flagship city development programme — with only three years to go for the termination of its assigned lifespan of seven years, is symptomatic of the country’s predilection to put politics above all other issues, including the vital ones. The Mission, aimed at pulling India’s 63 cities out of their dilapidation, which is somewhat reminiscent of...

Worthies such as Ratan Tata who have been lobbying the government to go easy on Union Carbide Corporation (http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/5_27.pdf) would do well to read Carbide’s useful FAQs on the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy, which claimed over 10,000 lives. Worse, over 5 lakh humans, including those born after the disaster, are still suffering the consequences of the gas leak. Even now, Carbide refuses to accept any kind of...