Union health ministry has decided to address the contentious issue of sexual health of adolescents head on. With one in every five Indians is in the age bracket of 10-19 years, the Union health ministry has conceived an "Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health (ARSH)" programme, where unique "health clinics" will dish out "adolescent-friendly services." States have started training doctors and nurses who will man these adolescent clinics to deal with uncomfortable problems...

Ten days ago a well-informed reader in Kochi e-mailed a convincing case for banning endosulfan, an off-patent pesticide widely used by farmers round the country, on the reasoning that it played havoc with the lives and livelihoods of poor farm workers. But the reader did not stop with this; he said The Hindu had not given the issue the Attention it warranted. This led me to a qualitative study of...

The CSR has declined in 27 States and Union Territories, recording an all-time low, while the adult sex ratio has improved, though slowly. WHEN the provisional data from Census 2011 were released on March 31, the worst fears of those working in the area of women and child development were confirmed. The horror of a declining child sex ratio (CSR), which first came to light in Census 2001, returned once again,...

Ghulam Nabi Azad led Indian delegation to Moscow India is working towards framing a mental health policy India achieved a major success on the global platform by pushing for inclusion of mental health in the list of non-communicable diseases. India fought alone to get mental disorders included in the non-communicable diseases (NCDs) list at the just-concluded first Ministerial Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and Non-communicable Disease Control in Moscow. Mental health as a NCD...

The arrest of Suresh Kalmadi on 25 April marked yet another scene in the prolonged drama surrounding the Commonwealth Games held in Delhi in October 2010. Yet the general media focus on Kalmadi may have served to distract Attention from the many other acts of omission and commission that mark the sordid history of that extravagantly planned and deeply flawed public show. In these other actions, there are stories of funds...