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...

India is all set to be part of the global movement to free mentally ill people from chains.   A shameful practice often referred to as a blot on human rights, mentally ill patients in the southeast Asia region, including India, are chained to poles or their beds in Institutions meant to cure them. In the Erwadi tragedy in India in 2001, over 20 people with mental illness were burned to death after...

This book discusses a new poverty agenda for Asia and the role of social policies in economic transformation and reducing poverty. The poverty-reduction agenda is well known. So is the debate over poverty. No one disputes the fact that poverty of income (or expenditure, as countries such as India do not collect household data on income) is an imperfect measure of poverty, as there are non-income dimensions, too. Consequently, we...

The budget is more concerned about the consumer than the grower A LOOMING food crisis in the world and high food inflation rates at home made Pranab Mukherjee’s proposals to boost agriculture in his 2011 budget more keenly watched than usual. These are factors that clearly weighed with the finance minister who repeatedly said that his principal concern this year has been the continuing high food prices. The squeeze on the...

The ministry will soon introduce a system to get a third party to conduct environmental assessments for projects in ecologically sensitive areas like wetlands or projects that involve multiple sectors, he said. "Frankly speaking, environmental impact assessment reports prepared for projects are bit of a joke. Under the system we have today, the person who is putting up the project prepares the report. Even reputed government Institutions do cut and paste...