-The Hindu That India, the pharmacy of the South, should find itself on the brink of a major TB-drug stock-out is at once shocking and shameful. The fact that an antiquated drug-procurement system and incompetent and irresponsible government departments - which dragged their feet for more than two long years to procure the drugs - could have brought us to such a situation tells us how dangerously poised the national...

-The Economic Times Anshu Prakash is worried about what he calls "mischievous propaganda" by "some people" who he thinks are misleading reporters. The joint secretary at the ministry of health and family welfare starts off by flatly denying that the joint monitoring mission (JMM) set up by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the government of India (GoI) discussed the impending danger of a TB drugs stock-out in August 2012. "There was...

-The Business Standard Bihar's model of health care through mobile phones is finding many takers Many things may be going wrong in India, but the one thing that has gone right is the reach of the mobile phone. It has bridged the divide between the rural and the urban areas, the rich and the poor. Governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and phone companies are realising the potential of the mobile phone as a tool...

-The Hindu There has to be a national mission to ensure that rural homes have access to clean cooking fuel and stoves instead of the killer chulhas that are claiming the lives of large numbers of women A large section of our country's population, nearly 75 per cent of rural and 22 per cent of urban households, still uses biomass for daily cooking. An estimated 80 per cent of the residential energy...

-The Hindu India's paradox of fast economic growth across several years and chronic malnutrition in a significant section of the population is well known. It has vast numbers of stunted children whose nutritional status is so poor that infectious diseases increase the danger of death. About 34 per cent of girls aged 15 to 19 are stunted in the country, according to a major review of global undernutrition by The Lancet....