In a small pastoral vand (hamlet) in Kutch, Gujarat, 10 year old Ramu wakes up at five in the morning. His mother serves him a hasty breakfast of bajra rotis after which he is packed off to the pasturelands surrounding their small hamlet to graze the family's buffaloes. Since his village does not have a working school, grazing the livestock is gainful employment from the point of view of Ramu's...

A new United Nations report shows for the first time how poor health is linked to poverty in cities and calls on policymakers to identify those that need the most help and target measures to improve their well-being. The report, entitled “Hidden Cities: unmasking and overcoming health inequities in urban settings,” was launched today in Kobe, Japan, where leaders from governments, academia, media and non-governmental organizations have been meeting for the...

Epidemic declared in Rajnandgaon and Bilaspur districts; 10 dead in Bilaspur State health officials have confirmed the outbreak of a malaria epidemic in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon and Bilaspur districts. While the neighbouring districts of Durg and Koriya have also reported a spurt in malaria cases, officials have embarked on a State-wide intervention programme to contain the disease. Health Secretary Vikas Sheel said 10 people had died of falciparum malaria in Bilaspur thus far,...

Twenty years is a good enough time to assess how countries of the world, irrespective of the economic or political system they follow, have performed in promoting human development. Successive Human Development Reports (HDR), since 1990, have mainstreamed health and education as critical indicators of human progress and contributed to international policy structures. For instance, the Millennium Development Goals, aimed at using international financial resources to reduce global poverty, can...

The NAC proposals for the food security bill are narrow and lack in vision. What is needed is a comprehensive bill with universalisation of PDS and a focus on child malnutrition.   There was much excitement when food security became one of the issues in the manifestos of most major political parties in the run up to the 2009 General Elections. With burgeoning food stocks, double-digit food inflation, stagnant malnutrition rates, declining...