The next stage of a measles immunization drive supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) began today in India, aiming to reach 134 million children and prevent an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 annual deaths from the disease. The children in the states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh will begin receiving the second dose of their vaccinations as part of a year-long campaign by the...

Every afternoon at about four, a slight woman named Runi slips out of the cramped, airless room that she shares with her husband and their sixteen children. She skirts the drainage ditch in front of the building, then walks toward the pile of hardened dung cakes that people in this slum on the edge of the northeastern Indian city of Patna use for fuel. Dressed in a bright-yellow sari shot...

The world has made significant progress in income, education and health over the past 40 years, but the gains have been uneven and in some places war and the ravages of AIDS shortened life spans, according to a United Nations report on Thursday. Over all, average life expectancy around the globe jumped to 70 years in 2010, up from 59 in 1970. School enrollment through high school reached 70 percent...

Off With Their Rights...     * As many as 3 lakh slum dwellers in Delhi were evicted before the Commonwealth Games     * When a family is evicted, each member loses many rights—the rights to livelihood, shelter, health, education etc     * Of some 60,000 beggars on Delhi streets, more than 50,000 were removed for the Games *** Forget the razzle-dazzle and the hype over the recently concluded Commonwealth Games (CWG) in Delhi. The human...

U.S. President Barack Obama's interaction with the inhabitants of Kanpura village in Ajmer district of Rajasthan through video-conferencing on Sunday gave him a glimpse of the information technology revolution in rural India that extends the benefits of modern technology and services to the grassroots to improve the quality of people's lives. Union Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot led the rural group during the 10-minute interface at the...