Civil rights groups blame packaged food supplied to anganwadis  Close on the heels of the damning hunger and malnutrition (HUNGaMA) report, which found 42 per cent children below age five across India underweight and 59 per cent children stunted,  comes another report on the state of nutrition among children in Karnataka state. Over 1.2 million children in the state in the age group of 0-6 years are malnourished and underweight, says a...

India seems to have arrived at the threshold of polio eradication, but should it lower its guard? ON January 13, India achieved what had only two years ago seemed impossible in the immediate term. The country, which, given the epidemiological data in the new millennium, had come to be regarded by health experts around the world as one that would be the last to achieve freedom from polio (poliomyelitis), recorded no...

India will soon ban blood tests to detect tuberculosis (TB) that are widely available across the country.  An expert group set up by the Drug Controller General of India has found that blood tests are mostly inaccurate for TB detection. It has recommended to the Union health ministry to immediately ban them.  A ministry official said "The DCGI had set up an eight-member committee to look at whether a proposal by the...

-The Hoot The brutally fatal silencing of three journalists along with the sharp rise in censorship of content in online media and the increasing cases of defamation marked the deterioration of the climate for free speech across India in 2011. Attacks on journalists continued to be high, with 24 recorded instances even as writers, journalists and lawyers bore the brunt of the intolerance of vigilante groups to dissenting opinion. The Free Speech...

One in 20 people aged 15-64 years, or 200 million are using illicit drugs worldwide annually. A global study on illicit drug use, to be published in the medical journal " Lancet" on Friday, says there are 125-203 million cannabis, 14-56 million amphetamine, 14-21 million cocaine and 12-21 million opioid users. In south and south-east Asia, an estimated 54 lakh people use cannabis, 28 lakh opioid and another four lakh cocaine. According to...