-The Economist   A huge identity scheme promises to help India’s poor—and to serve as a model for other countries INDIA’S economy might be thriving, but many of its people are not. This week Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, said his compatriots should be ashamed that over two-fifths of their children are underfed. They should be outraged, too, at the infant mortality, illiteracy, lack of clean drinking water and countless other curses that...

-The Hindu   The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana to provide health insurance cover is likely to be extended to more people among the vulnerable sections. This was decided at a Union Cabinet meeting, which reviewed the scheme on Thursday. The scheme has already been extended to MGNREGS beneficiaries, street vendors, domestic workers, beedi workers and those working at building and construction sites. “The scheme has been extended to a few segments of unorganised workers....

-PTI The United Nations and leading world organizations celebrated India’s first polio free year and termed it as a major milestone in their fight against this dreaded disease. The World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan, termed it as the “greatest public health achievement” of India, the Bill Gates, of Bill and Milinda Gates Foundation described it as a major milestone in the global fight against polio. “This is a major milestone in...

“Only one third of the journey has been completed” The last case of wild polio virus reported in India was exactly one year ago, on January 13, when stool samples showed that 18-month-old Rukhsar Khatoon in West Bengal had polio. She has since recovered, but it is the progress of whittling down from the largest number of cases in the world to zero that is fascinating to public health experts globally. Clearly,...

-Reuters India is about to hit a milestone in its battle to eradicate the polio virus with no new cases reported in the past year, the country’s health minister said today, a dramatic drop from being the country worst-affected by the crippling disease. The last case was detected on January 13 in a two-year-old girl in Howrah. A full year without any new cases means India will no longer be classed as “polio-endemic”...