Are some tribal groups in Koraput and Mayurbhanj on the brink? The answer seems to be in affirmative if the rate of child mortality among the tribals is any indication. The child mortality rate of the tribals in 1997-98 was 44 but it has surged to over 62 per 1000, says the latest study by Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement in association with the World Health Organisation. The Study has conducted...

Delhi is an anxious city this monsoon season, struggling to meet an onerous deadline. Preparations continue at a feverish pace for the 19th Commonwealth Games (CWG), which will bear down on the Indian metropolis October 3-14, along with some 8,500 athletes from the 71 states and territories that were once part of the British Empire. Around-the-clock construction and spells of heavy monsoon rain have turned Delhi into a swirl of mud...

The disclosure by the Centre for Science and Environment that 11 of the 12 leading brands of honey sold in India contain high levels of harmful antibiotics should make us acknowledge our failure to evolve and enforce environmental and health standards. Similar disclosures were made about pesticides in soft drinks and coliform bacteria in 'safe' bottled water. More distressing is the documentation since the 1980s of high content of pesticides...

The mountainous state-owned food stocks lying in the open and rotting in the rain are in stark conflict with a failing public distribution system , hunger, malnutrition and high food prices. The poor management of food stocks provoked the Supreme Court to transgress into executive domain when, on August 12, the court made certain directions like limiting procurement to covered warehousing capacity and distributing the rotting foodgrains free of cost...

Eliminating hunger from the State seems a distant possibility if the results of the latest survey report ‘Millennium Development Goals - A status report on Orissa’ are any indication. The survey found a high of 43 per cent families in the State don’t have ration card at all. Significantly, it reveals that more than half of the beneficiaries (52 per cent), who avail the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, fail to receive the...