Every afternoon at about four, a slight woman named Runi slips out of the cramped, airless room that she shares with her husband and their sixteen children. She skirts the drainage ditch in front of the building, then walks toward the pile of hardened dung cakes that people in this slum on the edge of the northeastern Indian city of Patna use for fuel. Dressed in a bright-yellow sari shot...

We have just celebrated yet another birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma had a vision for free India, which was to give the nation a people-friendly governance—'Ramrajya'. Unfortunately, 63 years after Independence, this dream of Mahatma Gandhi, remains just a dream and will probably continue so in future too. 'Ramrajya'  cannot be a reality because our country's leaders have too many vices and too few...

Karunanidhi makes announcement at inauguration of Anna Centenary Library Five boiled eggs a week will hereafter be given to students covered under the nutritious meal programme, Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi announced on Wednesday. At present, three eggs are given to the students — on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays — every week. Henceforth, eggs would be given on five working days of schools a week, the Chief Minister said, declaring open the Anna...

Health experts from more than 100 countries gathered in Bangkok today under the auspices of the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) to discuss ways to make life-saving medical equipment more accessible to people in developing countries. “The medical device industry holds great promise for public health, sometimes spectacular promise, sometimes seductive promise,” Margaret Chan, the WHO Director-General, told the more than 350 experts meeting in Thailand’s capital. “Health officials and hospital...

Even as recent media reports caution that most fruits and vegetables are largely unfit for human consumption due to their high chemical content, pesticides continue to be used recklessly in the fields of Punjab. The ‘Granary of India’ constitutes 2.5 per cent of the total agricultural land in India, but consumes more than 18 per cent of the total pesticides used in India. Within the state the worst affected is the southwestern...