What is the point of having a great GDP if as a society we are unhealthy? I am a bit of a dreamer. I dream that one day we will be living in a country where things will be different, and where the rich and the poor will both get the same, good, quality health care. To many it may seem like a totally impractical, and an unachievable dream. But it's...

As cartoons, like all other images, are constantly subject to fresh interpretation, there is a need to set boundaries within which dissent must be tolerated; or else we run the risk of damaging the task of knowledge building Like many books, works of art, and articles that have been summarily withdrawn from public circulation, for different political reasons, and due to public pressure, the controversial 1949 cartoon by Shankar has been...

-The Economist An absence of optimism plays a large role in keeping people trapped in poverty THE idea that an infusion of hope can make a big difference to the lives of wretchedly poor people sounds like something dreamed up by a well-meaning activist or a tub-thumping politician. Yet this was the central thrust of a lecture at Harvard University on May 3rd by Esther Duflo, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute...

There is a complicated relationship between abortion as such and the selective abortion of female foetuses. This dilemma is one with which the women’s movement in India has been grappling since the late 1980s. In my discussion of this dilemma, I would like to move away completely from Satyamev Jayate, the television programme, (on which a discussion has been initiated by Shohini Ghosh on kafila.org). In any case, there the...

* 11 percent of babies born premature in 2010, 1.1 million died * Experts estimate 75 percent could be saved * U.S. rate at 12 pct, fueled by later births, fertility treatments NEW YORK, May 2 (Reuters) - The world's developed countries have seen their average rate of premature births double to 6 percent since 1995, despite efforts to reduce the phenomenon, according to a report released on Wednesday. Worldwide, 15 million of the...