-The Hindu One of the most prominent features of India’s middle-class-driven public culture has been an obsession about our GDP growth rate, and a facile equation of that number with a sense of national achievement or impending arrival into affluence. In media headlines, political speeches, and everyday conversations, the GDP growth rate number — whether it is five per cent or eight per cent or whatever — has become a staple...

-PTI Delhi's sex ratio has increased from 821 in 2001 census to 866 in 2011 but it is still below the national ratio, according to data released by Delhi Government which puts the city's population at 1.67 crore. Delhi Statistical Hand Book released by the city government states that the sex ratio was 866 females per 1,000 males in the capital in 2011, as compared to 821 females per 1,000 males in...

Five deaths and over 200 cases of diarrhoea reported in five days Heat wave coupled with lack of clean drinking water has wreaked havoc in the northern part of Gujarat. Over 221 cases of diarrhoea have been reported from Dhanera town of Banaskantha district in the state in the past five days. Ten per cent of the patients are children. The disease has also caused the death of five people in...

Regulations covering public health should override personal rights and the country cannot wait any more for a good public health law. The health care industry, including institutions of medical education, hospitals and pharmaceutical businesses, have grown into behemoths that can do considerable harm in the absence of independent and effective regulatory systems. While there are no success stories in the regulation of any kind of industry in India, I will focus...

-The Hindustan Times Fifty per cent of drinking water supplied to north Delhi is not fit for consumption and is a carrier of cholera, typhoid and jaundice, surveys conducted by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation have found. On the other hand, people in south Delhi get clean, drinkable water, said a recent survey by the civic body’s south arm and the Delhi Jal Board (DJB). The north Delhi corporation said that of...