-Frontline Childhood TB has been neglected for decades, but in the past few years the WHO has begun to realise its real impact in terms of incidence, prevalence and mortality. THE number of annual new tuberculosis (TB) cases in India has been nearly 2.2 million for the past couple of years. Many of these infected people would have been in contact with children aged under five years before being diagnosed and,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India has the world's highest estimated burden of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis patients and needs to substantially accelerate its capacity for diagnosis and treatment of these patients, a World Health Organisation report has indicated. The WHO's global tuberculosis report for 2013, released today, estimates that India accounts for 64,000 cases of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) among notified patients with pulmonary (lung) tuberculosis. China and Russia follow with 59,000 and 46,000 cases. The...

-Outlook The faecal matter hits the rotary blades, politically-but we're still staring at a sanitation disaster "Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate mostly besides the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover." -V.S. Naipaul An Area of Darkness, 1964 Not...

-The Business Standard Panel member questioned the choice of sub-components There is some consolation for Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi: Not everyone in a panel headed by Reserve Bank of India Governor and former chief economic advisor Raghuram Rajan had favoured the inclusion of Gujarat in the list of less developed states. Economist and social scientist Shaibal Gupta, a member of the panel, had dissented and...

-The Hindu Bihar is the second most backward, and Gujarat is less developed A panel headed by Raghuram Rajan has recommended a new index of backwardness to determine which States need special assistance. The new methodology ranks Odisha as India's most backward State, Bihar, which has been seeking ‘special' status, as the second most backward, and Gujarat as one of the "less developed" States. Goa is India's most developed State. In May this year,...