Tamil Nadu will soon have a centralised data resource centre to collect relevant data across all health departments. The Health Management Information System (HMIS), accessible across the various departments, will be able to function as a one-stop shop for all information on health in Tamil Nadu, and as such will be able to influence policy-making in the health sector, according to S. Vijayakumar, project director, Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project (TNHSP). Once...

Malnutrition or due to socio-economic reasons and backwardness? Ninety-eight children under six died of various causes in Maharashtra's Melghat region in September alone. While confirming this, Amravati district health officer S.K. Yelurkar told The Hindu that there was no outbreak of any illness and the deaths were due to “routine socio-economic reasons and the backwardness of the region.” The forested region, comprising Dharni and Chikhaldara taluks, is largely inhabited by Korku Adivasis...

Despite recording robust economic growth over the last couple of decades and spending thousands of crores of rupees on subsidising foodgrain and other programmes aimed at improving the nation’s social indicators, India ranks a low 67 among 84 countries on the Global Hunger Index, 2010. The country has actually dropped two levels since last year on the index published jointly by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerhilfe and Concern...

Incessant rain and high tide with 8-metre-tall waves have flooded over 100 coastal villages in East Midnapore as well as Digha, affecting nearly 10,000 people and leaving thousands homeless. Over 500 mud huts have collapsed since last night, rendering over 2,000 people homeless. The villagers have been shifted to relief camps set up by panchayats in Shankarpur, Deshpran, Tajpur, Khejuri and Kendamari in Nandigram. The Hooghly flows into the Bay of...

Delhi NGOs initiate a process to survey the city's homeless people and reach welfare schemes to them. IN the narrow lanes of Khari Baoli, Asia's largest wholesale spice and grocery market in the crowded Old Delhi area near the Red Fort, labourers grapple with heavy sacks of grain, pulses, and so on as they load them on to wooden trolleys or unload them from trucks. There is no room for...