World Tuberculosis Day to be observed today 2 million people successfully treated annually through DOTS Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the biggest threats to public health in the World Health Organisation (WHO) - South-East Asia Region, causing one death a minute. Although the total number of people affected by the disease has steadily declined in the last decade, there are five million people living with TB in the region — a third...

Why are the erstwhile RTI campaigners so alarmed five years after it became law? Why so many dharnas, rallies, conventions and hunger-strikes all over again? Part of the reason is that the silent revolution that the RTI has spawned needs to be defended from surreptitious alterations and manipulations, and partly because the RTI activists are being threatened, harassed and assaulted by the corrupt and the powerful, often with the connivance...

The Communist Party of India (CPI) will fight for according priority to the agriculture sector, and linking rivers within Tamil Nadu and in southern States, says its election manifesto that was released here on Wednesday. Agriculture being the livelihood for 60 per cent of Tamil Nadu's population, the party would not only fight for according priority to this sector but also protecting farm lands, water resources and controlling the price of...

The new bribery revelations, a rigged process to import reactors and safety-related concerns must lead to the long-blocked scrutiny of the nuclear deal by Parliament. The world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl raises troubling questions about India's plans for a huge expansion of its nuclear power programme through reactor imports. Given its low per-capita energy consumption, India must generate far more electricity to economically advance. So it needs more nuclear-generated power....

This article explores the issue of dalits’ inclusion in the media industry. It argues that under-representation of dalits in Indian media leads to an exclusion of news on dalits. [This was presented in the “National Conference on Ethical Issues and Indian Media” held on 26 and 27 November 2010 and in Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu.] [J Balasubramaniam (balumids@gmail.com) is with the Department of Journalism and Science Communication, Madurai Kamaraj University.] The basis...