-IANS   An uneasy calm prevailed Thursday evening at the B.C. Roy Children's hospital here, which till late afternoon witnessed chaos and violence following the death of at least 18 infants in less than two days due to various causes. The unfortunate parents had left the hospital after authorities released the bodies of their babies. Only a cluster of relatives of the other admitted child patients, some media persons and police personnel...

Jawaharlal Nehru University, set up as a centre for academic excellence for the whole country, mainly caters to students from UP and Bihar. This has come out in the draft performance audit report of Comptroller & Auditor General that also found JNU having diverted Rs 6.29 crore, allocated under Infrastructure Development Fund for OBC reservation, to pay electricity/water charges. The government auditor said JNU had failed to maintain an "all-India character...

Health targets fail as they are set without strategies. The 12th Five-Year Plan should be used to look at the changes needed in the public health system. Health is currently a privilege in India. Not a right. Maternal and child health remains neglected even after countless plans, programmes and political proclamations. Every year, nearly 60,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth, while approximately 1.7 million children less than five years of...

Conditional cash transfers are necessary but not sufficient for improving health. Good government-funded health care is essential, as are schemes which address social determinants of health. The march of capitalism, with its reduced emphasis on public spending, while improving many national economies has also widened the gap between the rich and the poor. For millions of Indians, hunger is routine, malnutrition rife, employment insecure, health care expensive and livelihoods are under...

The State's public education system faces the threat of dilution from several quarters. WHEN a national law is finally in place to ensure that not a single child is out of school, there is a growing concern in Kerala, which already has a well-established, though languishing, public education system, about the United Democratic Front (UDF) government's moves to sanction a large number of private, unaided schools. The decision to issue no...