Health activists and non-government organisation working against tobacco abuse, Health Related Information Dissemination Among Youth (HRIDAY), have written to Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, urging her to support the timely implementation of strong and effective pictorial health warnings on tobacco product packages. “The current pictorial health warnings in India are extremely mild and ineffective to communicate the hazardous health effects of tobacco use. Since the Department...

Government undecided on criteria to identify families below poverty line A survey by the Indian government in 2002 to determine households below poverty line (BPL) left out many poor families. Nearly a decade later, the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) is trying to set the wrong right. But it is unable to decide on the criteria for identifying poor households. As a consequence, the BPL survey that was to...

WHILE maintaining her support for a Lokpal institution, Aruna Roy, a prominent civil rights activist and a member of the National Advisory Council, took a critical position in respect of the Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by the activists of the India Against Corruption campaign. A recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2000, she heads the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (a trade union of workers and peasants)...

It's that time of the year when Jharkhand celebrates the Sarhul festival. As saal trees sprout new leaves and blossom in leafless forests, tribals troop to the village saran sthal (place to pray)' to worship nature. White and red-striped flags flutter along a cratered road snaking through Latehar's hilly terrain, from Rajdanda to Barahi. Construction of this road in Latehar's Mahuadanr block, around 120km from Ranchi, began last year. After villagers...

The first results of Census 2011 put India's population at 1,210 million, indicating a demographic transition. CENSUS 2011 is the 15th one undertaken in India since 1872 and the seventh after the country attained Independence. While there have been stray historical references to population counts of one kind or another in earlier periods over much smaller territories within the territory that constitutes present-day India, the consensus view is that the...