Jharkhand and the Centre today gave final shape to a plan that aims to improve the lives of 36,000 people living in Saranda forest. At a high-level meeting in Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh’s office, chief minister Arjun Munda discussed a time-bound strategy to implement the Saranda Action Plan. Ramesh said by November 10, Jharkhand would start appointing rozgar sevaks (employment facilitators) for each of the 56 villages in the area....

This Education Day (November 11), the principal of each elementary school in India will receive VVIP mail -- a letter from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Contained therein will be a highly personalised message of the PM for the children of the country, who have long been guaranteed the Right to Education (RTE) by law, but who may not still know of it. The letter, to be posted to 13 lakh principals of...

There are fears that curative health care will be left to the private sector, while the public system will handle preventive and low-quality care. AN issue of The Lancet earlier this year highlighted some of the problems with public health in India, acknowledging that “it is in crisis”. The robust economic growth over the past 20 years has not translated into better health indices; indeed the decline of infant and child...

Muslims in general may be opposed to the creation of a separate Telangana state but analysis of region-wise employment figures for Andhra Pradesh shows that in the 10 districts of Telangana region, Muslims and OBCs have suffered the highest loss of Rs 41.50 in rural per capita income between 1993-94 and 2004-05.  On the higher education front, the community remains the most backward in urban areas, with the absolute change being...

As many as 26 "mini interventions" will make up the world's largest programme to combat non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that will be launched by India soon. The "New Delhi Call for Action on combating NCDs in India" initiative will be against specific diseases, and some will exclusively address major risk factors like obesity, junk food and tobacco consumption. The World Health Organization (WHO) only recognizes cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung ailments as...