-Hindustan Times New Delhi: Dengue figures in the Capital may have been grossly under-reported, shows an analysis of data from various hospitals. Eight government hospitals have reported 13 deaths as on Saturday, but the municipal corporations have confirmed just five. Data from the civic bodies, which collate information from all private and government hospitals, clinics and nursing homes across the Capital, confirms just 1,872 dengue cases. This figure seems grossly low as data...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Indian weaver is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand for his or her skills and products. In the new millennium, globalisation and a mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life threaten to take over, even as the West looks East for better concepts of sustainable living. Analysing today's crisis in the handloom sector, plagued by low-cost imitations from power looms,...

-The Indian Express The public health system is failing all stakeholders: practitioners, patients and their families. Doctors — or, more broadly, medical practitioners — are the most important cogs in any health delivery system. They diagnose the sick, devise a course of treatment and follow it through, the lead problem-solvers, as it were. As a series in this newspaper has shown, however, doctors, particularly in the public health system, are overworked...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: Delhi has the highest density of hospitals in the country and more beds available for patients than the national average but it is impossible to get treatment in government-run hospitals when needed. The city’s rising population and the many thousands who come from other states seeking treatment have virtually put government hospitals, which offer cheaper care, out of reach for most people. Delhi has 976 registered hospitals and clinics...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com Kasargod: In 2000, Pidamale Govinda Bhat, 63, a middle-class areca nut farmer, rigged up an experimental check dam with sand and plastic sheets. For decades, his family had been constructing a temporary check dam across the Okkethoor river with stones and soil to irrigate their farm. “The government constructed a vented dam for us in place of our temporary check dam,” recalls Bhat. “But the sarkari dam leaked and leaked. By...