People of dalit communities in the Gadarwara sub-division of district Narsinghpur in Madhya Pradesh are on the brink of starvation as they are facing harassment, economic sanctions and social boycott because they have refused to remove animal carcasses. A fact finding team of civil society organisations says that dalits at many places have been ‘imprisoned’ in their own houses as all entry and exit points have been blocked by the...

A new United Nations-backed report calls on countries in the Pacific Ocean region to scale up their response to HIV and AIDS, which is being fuelled in the region by violence against women, stigma and unprotected sex. According to “Turning the tide: an OPEN strategy for a response to AIDS in the Pacific,” the first report published by the Commission on AIDS in the Pacific, an estimated 59,000 people were...

The President of International Fund for Agricultural Development stresses that access to funds for developing countries will help them make ethical decisions in the quest for food security. Just days before the UN Climate Change summit at Copenhagen, Kanayo Nwanze, President of IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), stresses that access to funds for developing countries will help them make ethical decisions in the quest for food security. Nwanze was...

SOMETIMES, TO accentuate the intransigence of the present, one must revisit the past. So first, a flashback. The year is 2006. An ordinary November evening in Delhi. A slow, halting voice breaks into your consciousness. “How shall I explain? It is not a punishment, but my bounden duty…” A haunting phrase in a haunting voice, made slow with pain yet magnetic in its moral force. “My bounden duty.” What could...

Children are now much higher on the global AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) agenda and there is a major shift in commitment, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’s Board, to increase support for Preventing Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT). India has received extended support from the Global Fund for Preventing Parent-To-Child Transmission (PPTCT), according to the Fourth Stocktaking Report, produced by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund,...