-The Hindu The Centre has launched a major war against Japanese encephalitis which claims hundreds of young lives and causes high morbidity among children in several States across the country during monsoon. Within weeks of taking over, Union Health and Family welfare Minister, Dr Harsh Vardhan said that his priority would be to ensure 100 per cent immunisation against the killer DISEase. Expressing extreme distress over the "runaway conquest of encephalitis," Dr Harsh...

-The Indian Express India's expenditure on vaccines should count as sound investment in a healthy future. Plans by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to introduce four new vaccines to India's Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) have been welcomed across the globe as one of the most significant leaps in India's public health policy in 30 years, and rightly so. These vaccines are currently available in India only on the private market, beyond the reach...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Fewer Indians might be dying from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, but it is estimated that almost 5.5 lakh non-HIV positive people died of TB last year, making it the biggest killer among the three. Malaria is estimated to have killed about 1.2 lakh people out of over 6 crore cases recorded last year. Though India's fight against HIV/AIDS is said to have made progress, the DISEase...

-New York Times News Service SHEOHAR (Bihar): He wore thick black eyeliner to ward off the evil eye, but Vivek, a tiny 1-year-old living in a village of mud huts and diminutive people, had nonetheless fallen victim to India's great scourge of malnutrition. His parents seemed to be doing all the right things. His mother still breast-fed him. His family had six goats, access to fresh buffalo milk and a hut filled...

-The Economic Times The rationale for embedding nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programmes in a development agenda is compelling. And yet, strangely, it has been ignored. Planning and implementation of such programmes require collaborative, consistent and aligned effort across multiple sectors. Currently, we have a myopic vision to pursue narrow agendas. Transformational change requires tackling one of the most obdurate challenges: malnutrition. This blight has a large human impact and a larger economic impact...