The case in Norway relating to the two Indian children who were removed from their parental home raises critical concerns about what is meant by the concept of “best interest” in matters relating to children. The purported findings of the Norway child welfare services — as claimed by the parents, at any rate — that a four-year-old did not have a separate room, that the children did not have appropriate toys...

India seems to have arrived at the threshold of polio eradication, but should it lower its guard? ON January 13, India achieved what had only two years ago seemed impossible in the immediate term. The country, which, given the epidemiological data in the new millennium, had come to be regarded by health experts around the world as one that would be the last to achieve freedom from polio (poliomyelitis), recorded no...

“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,...

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance finds the UID project to be “conceptualised with no clarity” and “directionless”. THE Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance has dealt a body blow to the Unique Identification (UID) project. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was set up under the Planning Commission by an executive order on January 28, 2009. The scheme involves the collection of demographic and biometric information to issue ID numbers to...

-Down to Earth   Study shows untouchability and caste bias determine access to health care in rural areas A study on the access to health care services in Gujarat has found that children in rural areas who belong to backward castes are being left out of vaccination drives when compared to children of upper castes. The study conducted in 2011 by Navsarjan, a non-profit, focused on the coverage of polio vaccine campaign in 68...