Progressive strengthening of public facilities is the only way to reach medical services to the population as a whole. “The best form of providing health protection would be to change the economic system which produces ill health, and to liquidate ignorance, poverty and unemployment. The practice of each individual purchasing his own medical care does not work. It is unjust, inefficient, wasteful and completely outmoded ... In our highly geared, modern...

Now, a majority of India's elderly are women. The Registrar General of India's (RGI) latest data from the Sample Registration System (SRS), 2010, has confirmed feminization of India's elderly. The data sent to the Union health ministry on Saturday shows that the percentage of women in the age group of 60 years and above is higher in 17 out of the 20 large states. It is as high as nearly...

World Water Day is held annually on March 22 to focus attention on the importance of freshwater and advocate sustainable management of freshwater resources. Each year, the day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater and this year's campaign was on “Water and Food Security.” A large quantity of water, more than most people think, is used for producing the food we eat everyday. Water is a renewable and finite resource...

India has recorded its first case of polio caused by a vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) this year in a five-month-old child in Murshidabad district of Bengal but the country remains free of the wild poliovirus. A polio surveillance laboratory in Calcutta has found that the child from Lalbag block in Murshidabad was infected by VDPV, which occurs when the weakened virus in the oral polio vaccine (OPV) mutates over time, and regains...

India’s decision-makers seem to find it difficult to see that there are children in the country. Being unable to see them, they are unable to perceive that they are hungry. In an age when we are able to use euphemisms like ‘under-nutrition’, this is perhaps not surprising. But it is disgraceful none the less.   This country has a large population of children. Fortyone per cent of its total numbers. The national...