That hospital births curb mother and child deaths is probably a no brainer. Convincing expectant mothers to get admitted to a hospital is only part of the problem in India’s rural healthcare system. The other challenge is abysmal infrastructure: There is just one hospital bed for every 10,000 Indians living in villages and one in 10 primary health centres in rural areas stumble along without doctors. The result is a human tragedy....

India lives in its villages, Gandhi said. But increasingly, the people of India are dying on its roads. India overtook China to top the world in road fatalities in 2006 and has continued to pull steadily ahead, despite a heavily agrarian population, fewer people than China and far fewer cars than many Western countries. While road deaths in many other big emerging markets have declined or stabilized in recent years,...

The Bhopal judgment suggests that were a nuclear disaster to be caused by an operator's negligence, they might be held criminally liable for little more than a traffic accident. The world was watching a trial court in Bhopal on Monday, as the Chief Judicial Magistrate ruled on the criminal responsibility for the gas leak at the Union Carbide factory in 1984. Twenty six years after the event, 178 prosecution witnesses...

What’s Working... Cashless facility for hospital care, medicine for BPL families Ensures one-point diagnosis, treatment with empanelled hospitals Fixed charges for procedures reduces chances of fleecing Empanelled private hospitals help ease burden on state ones *** ...And What’s Not Lack of awareness leads to under-utilisation of the scheme Flaws in BPL data deprives many of the RSBY card Outcome dependent on regular monitoring of service providers Could shift focus from need to improve...

Human rights activist Irom Sharmila, jailed since 2000 for resorting to a hunger strike against alleged rights violations by the security forces in Manipur, was once again arrested by police on charges of attempted suicide. The activist continued her refusal to eat a single morsel of food. Sharmila, who earned the sobriquet Iron Lady of Manipur and is now in her 10th year of judicial custody, was arrested Wednesday night and...