TIRUNELVELI: For the first time in the State, the Indian Red Cross Society’s Tirunelveli chapter has kicked off a novel initiative of collecting unused medicines from the public, segregating and stocking it in a pharmacy to be given strictly to the poor patients carrying prescriptions given by a qualified doctor. After seeing a sizable quantity of valuable drugs remain unused in the shelves of his house and of his friends,’ the...

Hundreds of tribals today participated in a rally in Kalinga Nagar industrial complex in Jajpur district to mark the fourth anniversary of the police firing in which 14 tribals had been killed while opposing Tata Steel’s project. Vistapan Virodhi Jana Manch, the organisation spearheading the agitation against the proposed steel plant of the Tatas, held the rally in which representatives of various anti-displacement bodies that have been opposing other industrial projects...

The State Cabinet on Wednesday approved a comprehensive scheme for the treatment and rehabilitation of people afflicted by the use of Endosulfan in cashew plantations in Kasaragod district. Briefing the media here, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said the Health Department would provide various kinds of assistance for the treatment and rehabilitation of the victims. The Cabinet had sanctioned Rs.125 lakh for the modernisation of hospitals in the area, improvement of medical...

The number of sex workers in the country may touch a whopping five million in just a few years, if the world's oldest profession is legalized as suggested by the Supreme Court, warn activists. Hearing a PIL by NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan about large scale child trafficking, the apex court had last week said that if the trade can't be curbed through punitive measures, legalizing it would be a better...

Introduction The phenomenon of disability is one of the pressing problems in the world. According to the projections of international agencies, about 10 per cent of the population are affected with physical, mental, sensory and other forms of impairments and around 75 per cent of the disabled population are concentrated in the rural and inaccessible areas of the developing societies. This data is based on recent studies carried out in various...