Anand Patwardhan’s paean to Dalits, that took 14 years to compose, probes even as it praises, says Saroj Giri THERE IS an entrenched tendency to represent Dalits fighting for rights and reservations as just (another) competitive bloc vying for self-interest and power. It leads to a pernicious inversion: ‘Dalit rights’ dividing the nation along caste lines. Victim as perpetrator! Anand Patwardhan’s film Jai Bhim Comrade takes us beyond the grid of...

-The Hindu Alcoholism and viral Hepatitis infection are the leading causes of liver disorders, B. Sankara Sarma, head of department of Gastroenterology, Kurnool Medical College, has said. Addressing a meeting in connection with the World Liver Day here on Thursday, he said alcoholic liver disorders like cirrhosis of liver accounted for 30-35 per cent while Hepatitis B and C infection caused 30-35 per cent of the diseases. Obesity, diabetes mellitus and hyper lipidamia...

HETA, India – At the entrance to this village in India’s eastern state of Jharkhand, a large pond glistened under the bright autumn sun. Yellow and blue lilies surrounded it. A tailor was stitching clothes outside his shop while a few boys nearby were playing carrom on the lid of a rusted oil barrel. It was a tranquil, rustic setting – a candidate for a landscape painting, it seemed. But it...

An estimated 134 million Indians suffer from chronic sinusitis, the symptoms of which include but are not limited to debilitating headaches, fever and nasal congestion and obstruction. That's more than population of Japan. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' (NIAID) estimate does not even take into account those of us who suffer from acute sinusitis. Among Indians this disease is more widespread than diabetes, asthma or coronary heart...

-The Wall Street Journal These days, Indian policymakers are debating how to create a vast new food entitlement program. There is talk of poor households struggling to cope with high food prices and malnourishment among their children. What you don’t hear much about, however, is the most tragic and outrageous consequence of India’s failure to feed its people adequately: starvation deaths. India is a nation that prides itself on having been self-sufficient in...