-The Times of India   The public health department has sought chief minister Prithviraj Chavan's intervention to introduce stringent clauses against medicos who complete their education from state-run or civic Hospitals but refuse to serve the mandatory one-year rural stint.  According to an official, the government was considering not issuing medical registration certificates--which is mandatory for higher studies, pursuing job in any Hospital or even for starting a dispensary of their own-to students...

The popular outrage over the official definition of poverty at abysmally low levels of daily income, of Rs 26 in rural areas and Rs 32 in urban areas, assumes the state will deny basic services to a household whose income is above the figure. This is totally erroneous. There is no mechanism in the hands of the government to ascertain income or expenditure to identify the 'poor' on the ground. The...

An expert panel appointed by the Centre has found to its horror that fluorosis has reached epidemic proportions in Garhwa as a result of the Jharkhand government’s negligence and failure to check the alarming spread of the disease. The team, appointed by the Union ministry of drinking water and sanitation, visited the district last month and found men, women and children of all ages with deformities due to fluoride poisoning from...

Why were two tribals and the Essar group framed by the Chhattisgarh police? Why are Soni Sori and Linga Kodopi being systematically silenced? This chilling story of one family reveals more about India's Naxal crisis than any official document can. AS I sit to write this, at 12.20 pm on 4 October 2011, an SMS pops up on my phone: “Soni Sori has been arrested by the Delhi Crime Branch.” The...

As a national debate rages over the Indian poverty line, in the heart of Bandra, one of Mumbai’s richest suburbs, in a shanty with barely enough standing space for two adults, three-year-old Priya Doiphode, clad in a red tee shirt, lies listless on a string bed. Priya is one of the 83,243 children in Mumbai who are malnourished, according to government data, a statistic that makes Mumbai the most malnourished...