-The Hindu Three major deficiencies of the Revised National TB Control Programme need correction Tuberculosis is the worst among endemic diseases, killing 1.5 million people every year (WHO). TB affects adults in their most productive years and therefore impoverishes the family and the nation. In India, the TB capital of the world, the disease kills some 1,400 persons every day. These are gross estimates, for our health management system has no method...

-Scroll.in Taking available medicines instead of what has been prescribed could lead to drug resistance and even death. Nongmeikapam Dusmanta, a retired government employee from the water resources department in Manipur, has battled with HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, for over two decades. He has seen the evolution of India’s battle against AIDS – acquired immune deficiency syndrome, an HIV-led disease that severely damages the immune system – from a time when there...

-NITI Aayog Working Paper, ISBN: 978-81-953811-7-3 Abstract -  The importance of agriculture in an economy usually declines as it climbs the development ladder. Raising agriculture productivity has been known to be an important precursor. Labour productivity in agriculture can either be increased by higher land productivity or higher land availability per farmer and mechanisation. In India, however, the dramatic increase in land productivity through industrial farming has caused severe environmental damage and...

-Scroll.in Unplanned urbanisation, changing rainfall patterns and delayed preventive measures have created perfect conditions for mosquitoes to thrive. When Dr Shaukat Kalam visited Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh in August, he saw signs of a deadly dengue outbreak everywhere. “We found mosquito breeding in every second house, in the garbage, on the roadside, in articles where water was accumulating,” said the entomologist, an expert on insects, who currently works with the central government’s...

-Scroll.in Limited testing means cases and deaths are going undetected in the state. This year, Uttar Pradesh has reported 1,069 dengue cases to the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, the central government’s nodal agency on vector borne diseases. However, it has not reported a single death caused by dengue, data from the agency’s regional office shows. This, despite the fact that more than 50 people have died of fever in the past...