Despite progress on many fronts to improve global health, the world still faces persistent challenges, from insufficient funding and capacity to the resistance by many to make needed lifestyle changes, the head of the United Nations health agency warned today. “Persuading people to adopt healthy behaviours is one of the biggest challenges in public health,” UN World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan told the agency’s Executive Board at the...

Multinational companies will now find it very difficult to patent products made by using Indian traditional knowledge of science. The Indian government has digitized all traditional knowledge of medicine available in India and has shared it with the US President and United States patents office so that nobody benefits unduly by using Indian knowledge and files for patents on such products. "We call it traditional knowledge in a digital library," said Minister...

If your child can go from a ‘near zero’ learning ability to getting 95 per cent in mathematics and from a state of malnutrition to WHO-approved standards of health, chances are that you will not find the Naxal ideology all that attractive. I was in the Naxal heartland of Bastar to review the learning skills of children in 300 schools who were being educated by the Naandi Foundation when news...

A revolution in small farm management is essential to revitalise the country’s agriculture sector, according to noted agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan. Corporate farming would be detrimental to India. Farming was the largest private sector enterprise in the country, and any bid to take away land from the farmer would be counter-productive. But a symbiotic relationship between farmers and industry, resulting in a win-win situation for both, would be good, he...

DINDIGUL: People visiting the farmers market at NGO Colony near here will soon get an opportunity to buy traditional rural food items and homemade products besides vegetables. It would become a single point shopping centre for consumers, said Collector M. Vallalar. He was presiding over a function that marked the concluding day of 10th anniversary of the farmers’ market at NGO Colony here on Wednesday. Selling all items including groceries, masala items...