Tuberculosis continues to be a major health problem in India. But the unveiling of a new test to diagnose TB and drug resistance on World Tuberculosis Day (March 24) brings some hope into a bleak scenario. Last Thursday, on World Tuberculosis Day, for the first time since the 1880s there was probably some justifiable cause for jubilation. After centuries of grappling with sputum smear microscopy, developed way back in the 1880s,...

DEALS WITH MULTINATIONALS AND OTHER BIG AGRIBUSINESS COMPANIES A wide range of farmers’ organisations, Gandhian organisations, people’s movements and NGOs have united to oppose a series of disturbing agreements which the Rajasthan Government reached with various multinational and other agribusiness companies including Monsanto. These agreements, which greatly increase the control and influence of these companies over the agriculture sector in India’s biggest State (in terms of area), have proved so controversial...

Despite Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's assurance that the government would not go ahead with the Jaitapur nuclear power plant unless it was fully secure, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has already sought tenders for building a concrete testing laboratory and a meteorological laboratory at Madhban, the proposed site of the plant. Long-term dangers cited As per the advertisement issued in a Marathi daily on Tuesday, the NPCIL called...

Panel report says this would increase soil productivity. In an effort to revolutionise sale of nutrient-based fertilisers, the ministry of agriculture for the first time is considering a proposal to introduce liquid fertilisers. This is based on the recommendation of a working group set up to study and recommend measures to increase agricultural production. Their report says micro irrigation can be combined with controlled application of fertilisers and other needed nutrients. To...

United Nations agencies today launched new international guidelines aimed at helping to protect health workers who provide care to people infected with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) from becoming infected themselves in the course of their work. The guidelines, drafted by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), are designed to help doctors, nurses and midwives, pharmacists and laboratory technicians, as...