-Down to Earth The primary health centre (PHC) at Ajara block in Maharashtra's Kolhapur district would handle just eight childbirth cases a year till 2011. Today, it handles over 125 such cases in a year. The health centre became efficient because of a Central government scheme that empowers communities to monitor public health services. In 2010, the residents participated in a jan sunwai (public hearing) session, in which they told senior...

-Press Information Bureau (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) Public health is a state subject. National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme and under NRHM, financial support is provided to States/UTs to strengthening their health care delivery system including support for engaging ASHAs and patient transport ambulances and development of health infrastructure in rural areas based on the requirements posed by the States/UTs in their Programme Implementation...

-The Indian Express Pune: Rajendra Kumar, Rajkot's district collector, has had a first-hand experience of the disease his office is tracking. "On the very first day of fever, I had my blood tested to rule out dengue," he says. "I was extremely weak and had to be hospitalised in the first week of September." The district has seen 280 cases of dengue so far this season. In Pune, National Institute of Virology deputy director Dr...

Malaria deaths in India could be more than 40 times higher that what is presently estimated. New research published in the Lancet shows that malaria kills 1.2 million people worldwide each year - twice as high as the figure in the World Malaria Report, 2011. In India, the study estimates that "4800 malaria deaths in children younger than 5 years and 42000 malaria deaths in those aged 5 years or older," for...