-AP   An estimated 100,000 people in India may have escaped HIV infection over five years thanks to one of the world’s biggest prevention programmes, an encouraging sign that targeting high-risk groups remains vital even as more Donors focus on treatment, a new study suggests. While the initial findings regarding the $258 million Avahan project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, come with large uncertainty due to data limitations and methodology,...

Managing our soil and water resources in a sustainable and equitable manner needs a new political vision, which can be expressed through the proposed Land Acquisition Bill and the recently formed Global Soil Partnership. On the basis of a proposal I had made three years ago, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a Global Soil Partnership for Food Security and Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation at a multi-stakeholder conference, held...

Have you heard of the Yangtze River Dolphin? For the longest time, it used to be found along 1,700 kilometres of the middle and lower reaches of the mighty Chinese river. The Baiji, as it is known, was white finned, a little over two metres long, had poor eyesight and relied mainly on sonar for navigation. A few decades ago, as populations along the river grew, as shipping traffic rose,...

The famine in the Horn of Africa is being seen as an inevitable consequence of drought, "the worst for 60 years". But this famine was almost entirely preventable, and presenting it as a natural disaster doesn't help; nor does our insistence on waiting for a major crisis before responding. Even though lessons about how to prevent famines have been documented time and time again, we don't learn. The conflict in Somalia...

Political parties are sourcing a major chunk of their funds from unidentified Donors, according to their income-tax returns. Donors' lists and tax returns filed by the Congress, BJP, NCP and BSP for the past five years show they have not identified those who account for most of their funding. For instance, the Congress collected at least Rs 978 crore through sale of coupons in the five years till 2008-09, for which...