“Only one third of the journey has been completed” The last case of wild polio virus reported in India was exactly one year ago, on January 13, when stool samples showed that 18-month-old Rukhsar Khatoon in West Bengal had polio. She has since recovered, but it is the progress of whittling down from the largest number of cases in the world to zero that is fascinating to public health experts globally. Clearly,...
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HIV 10 times more prevalent among migrants than general population by Kounteya Sinha
Migration is fuelling India's HIV epidemic. National AIDS Control Organisation's latest figures show that besides high risk populations like sex workers, the highest burden of HIV is among migrants - 3.6%, which is 10 times the HIV prevalence among the general population. With migration rates increasing, the prevalence will only get worse. According to the 2001 census, 30.1% of the population was considered to have migrated (314 million) - a considerable...
More »'Children of Gujarat's backward communities left out of vaccination drives' by
-Down to Earth Study shows untouchability and caste bias determine access to health care in rural areas A study on the access to health care services in Gujarat has found that children in rural areas who belong to backward castes are being left out of vaccination drives when compared to children of upper castes. The study conducted in 2011 by Navsarjan, a non-profit, focused on the coverage of polio vaccine campaign in 68...
More »PDS in peril by R Ramakumar
The promotion of the PDS as an Aadhaar application would fundamentally alter its form and character. NO scheme of the Indian government would be transformed more fundamentally by Aadhaar than the public distribution system (PDS). The nature of this transformation appears to be taking the form of a virtual dismantling of the PDS; even if a skeletal fair price shop (FPS, or ration shop) system continues to exist, it is likely...
More »Addressing India’s hunger gap by NC Saxena
The word ‘hunger’ does not appear in the 12th Plan Approach Paper even once, whereas according to the latest Global Hunger Index Report, India continues to be in the category of those nations where hunger is ‘alarming’. What is worse, India is one of the three countries where the hunger index between 1996 and 2011 has gone up from 22.9 to 23.7, while 78 out of the 81 developing countries...
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