“Only one third of the journey has been completed” The last case of wild polio virus reported in India was exactly one year ago, on January 13, when stool samples showed that 18-month-old Rukhsar Khatoon in West Bengal had polio. She has since recovered, but it is the progress of whittling down from the largest number of cases in the world to zero that is fascinating to public health experts globally. Clearly,...

-PTI The United Nations and leading world organizations celebrated India’s first polio free year and termed it as a major milestone in their fight against this dreaded disease. The World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan, termed it as the “greatest public health achievement” of India, the Bill Gates, of Bill and Milinda Gates Foundation described it as a major milestone in the global fight against polio. “This is a major milestone in...

While one year has passed without polio caused by natural poliovirus, we can claim complete eradication only after we ensure the absence of wild and vaccine polioviruses in the population. Today, India passes one whole year without polio caused by natural (wild) poliovirus — a major milestone towards polio eradication. This spells relief from an agonising decade of wild polioviruses refusing to surrender. Many experts believed that India posed the greatest...

-BBC   India's election authorities have put on hold a government decision to reserve a proportion of government jobs and seats in state-run education centres for minority groups. The quota - of 4.5% of jobs and seats - has been suspended until elections are held in five states next month. Critics say the Congress party announced the quota to woo Muslim minorities in the upcoming polls. Opposition parties had complained about the move. They accused the...

-IANS Jaunpur (Uttar Pradesh), Jan 9: Broken roads and power cuts have failed to deter people in their drive for education in this eastern Uttar Pradesh district. They have set up more than 30 schools and technical institutes for youth of the area. If you drive between Imran Ganj to Guraini in the Shahganj sub-division of the district -- a distance of some 10 km -- you can count about 40 schools...