-News18.com While India has been able to marginally reduce the infants infected from Diphtheria, Tetanus and Measles, the cases of Tuberculosis, Pneumonia, Pertussis and Diarrhoea have only magnified. Forty years after immunization was introduced for the FIRst time in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed representatives from 54 countries at the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) and cited the renamed Mission Indradhanush—it aims to immunize all children under the...

-The Hindu Waste disposal from other toilets could turn into health and environmental nightmare New Delhi: Over the last year, a government advertisement featuring film actors Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar has been preaching the benefits of the “do gadde” or twin-pit latrines, which would create valuable farm manure from human excreta. “Shauchalaya ka ashirvad,” proclaims Mr. Kumar in the advertisement produced by the Centre’s flagship sanitation scheme Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. This month,...

-Down to Earth Gourd has sculpted the culture and traditions of rural India for ages A mellifluous tune breaks the silence as I trudge through a forested hill in the Baiga heartland of Dindori district in Madhya Pradesh. At places the music fuses with the gurgling sound of Burner, a tributary of the Narmada river, and becomes even more enchanting. Entranced, I start following the melody and reach a hut where...

-The Times of India blog The hyper-patriotic heat over Indo-Pak aerial battles is diminishing. Other issues are getting more attention. The Election Commission has notified polling dates, so its model code of conduct for political parties is in force. This says no new projects or welfare schemes can be announced or implemented before the election. What does this imply for the pre-election PM-Kisan scheme, announced in the budget? Pre-election budgets are usually...

-News18.com Considering how governments have handed forests to destructive industries, why don't these wildlife-FIRst organisations demand the eviction of the Forest Departments from forest lands? Imagine people who live in clearings inside an extensive dense forest, cultivating paddy, harvesting grass, bamboo, and mushrooms, and hunting the occasional deer. They stay awake at night, beating drums to tell their elephant brothers not to come for their hard-earned crop. Once the harvest is over,...