The controversy-hit Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu is set to be operationalized, with its first 1,000mw unit to be opened soon as the project's safety audits have been completed and local resistance now reduced to a few hundred protesters.  While the report of the expert group set up by the Tamil Nadu government is awaited, the state government is more supportive of the project being commissioned and the Centre's...

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has asked the Jharkhand government for an action-taken report on fluorosis in Garhwa district following complaints from villagers about the state’s failure in providing piped water supply and medicines. The notice, sent on February 14, was a result of NHRC’s own investigation report, which said that local residents complained about not getting medicines regularly and the state’s water tankers — an ad hoc measure till...

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has criticised UN agencies like the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) for not doing enough to fight hunger and poverty. “Countries, food agencies and donors aren’t working together in a focused and co-ordinated way to provide the help small farmers need, when they need it,” Gates told the governing council of the IFAD in...

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is likely to run into a debate on public health policy after the Planning Commission moved to nix a proposal to include healthcare in the list of public entitlements such as education and food. Central to the proposal—initiated by a high-level expert group (HLEG) headed by K. Srinath Reddy, a leading advocate of preventive cardiology and president of the Public Health Foundation of India—was the...

India is lagging in its effort to reach United Nations goals to reduce poverty and improve health and sanitation, but has shown significant progress boosting education, treating AIDS and addressing environmental concerns, a U.N. official said. “We are in a race against time with just three years left” to achieve Millennium Development Goals, Noeleen Heyzer, executive secretary of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, said last...