-The Times of India MANDLA/JABALPUR: Tribals in Kundam, a settlement 40 km off Jabalpur, call it a black demon, one who strikes select families and ensures an early and agonizing death by sucking its victims white. For once, medical experts couldn't agree more with this home spun wisdom that aptly describes sickle cell - an incurable genetic disorder which damages vital organs like liver, kidney, heart and spleen. The disease manifest at...

-The Hindu Desperation seems to have caught up with the normally imperturbable tribal farmers of Adilabad which is evident from the abnormally large number of suicides by them since 2011. As many as 27 of them, all cotton farmers including a woman, from the aboriginal Gond, Naikpod, Mannepu and the Lambada plains tribe, figure in the list of 101 cotton farmers who have committed suicide since January 2011. Giving up life, for...

Women and impoverished, illiterate tribals fall prey to Madhya Pradesh’s overweening family planning zeal Birth Control 1951 Family planning as a policy is launched in independent India 1978 Rechristened Family Welfare after the emergency 2000 National Population Policy aims at stable population by 2045 2010 Madhya Pradesh launches targeted family planning NPP says sterilisation should be last resort in family planning. *** When Shyam Lal* walked into a primary health centre at Rewa, a dusty little town in...

After Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan declared 2012 as the year of family planning, some district collectors seem to have tossed the rule book to the winds to meet their targets. Such has been the zeal among the officials to bring more and more people under the scalpel that they are luring and misguiding protected tribals with dwindling population into sterilization. From aanganwadi workers to tehsildars and village 'patwaris',...

After Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan declared 2012 as the year of family planning, some district collectors seem to have tossed the rule book to the winds to meet their targets. Such has been the zeal among the officials to bring more and more people under the scalpel that they are luring and misguiding protected tribals with dwindling population into sterilization. From aanganwadi workers to tehsildars and village 'patwaris', everyone...