The recent shocking video showing naked Jarawa tribeswomen being forced to dance for food by tourists may highlight the risks of isolated, indigenous peoples of the world having contact with the modern world. The Jarawas of India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands are only one of several reclusive tribes around the world that are now facing extinction. While the government of India and tribal affairs officials have tried to protect people like the...

Mass public campaign a success but experts warn of need for continued vigilance Not even superstition can render this Friday the 13th unlucky for India. Today, the nation will reach a major milestone in the history of polio eradication – a year without any case of wild polio being recorded. For a nation that notoriously had, only two years ago, the largest number of polio cases in the world (741), this...

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...

-The Hindu   Issues of conflict of interest within Ethics Committee remain to be resolved, they say Public health activists and women's rights groups have raised concerns over compensation-related amendments to the Drugs and Cosmetic Rules 2011 proposed by the Union Health Ministry for subjects of clinical trials. They have suggested wider consultations before the amendments are notified. The proposed amendments pertain to the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 (rule 122 DAA) saying that...

Activists working for the rights of tribes people are concerned about their portrayal in the media in India. London-headquartered Survival International, which lobbies for the rights of tribal people across the world, said it is concerned about how tribals are viewed in India. “They are often referred to as ‘primitive’ and ‘backward’, implying that their way of life is in some way inferior and needs to be ‘developed,’” Survival’s South Asia campaigner...