The prolonged monsoon and the diseases that come with it have really tested Delhi’s health-care infrastructure. There is a huge shortage of beds in government as well as private hospitals. You can find patients wreathing in fever in the corridors, emergency wards, everywhere. Why aren’t there enough hospitals around? Contrast this with the media: Nowhere in the world will you find so many newspapers, magazines and television channels than India....

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday announced Rs.500 crore in assistance to the flood-affected Uttarakhand, a day after Congress president Sonia Gandhi sought a liberal package. The interim assistance will be in addition to the money given on Tuesday to the State Disaster Response Fund, a release from the Prime Minister's Office said. An inter-ministerial team was constituted to visit the State to assess the damage. Based on its assessment, “further...

Farmers have a reason to cheer because the cabinet on Tuesday gave nod to the developed land compensation scheme of Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB). The scheme will do away with giving cash as compensation to land losers. Instead, they will get a whopping 9,583 sqft of developed land per every acre of land acquired by the KIADB. The compensation deal has been brought on par with the BDA...

The Meena Gupta Committee formed by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to look into forest rights and other issues involving Posco project, today visited the Jatadhari river mouth, site of the project’s proposed captive port, in its second trip to the state in less than one month. Posco proposed to set up a captive port at Jatadhari river mouth, 10 km from Paradip port, on 500 acres of...

A United Nations-backed intervention involving cook stoves holds the promise of saving lives, uplifting health, improving regional environments, reducing deforestation, empowering local entrepreneurs, speeding development, and helping to stem global climate change. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has joined international efforts to dramatically boost the efficiency of some 3 billion cook stoves across Africa, Asia and Latin America, with the aim to protect women’s health and provide significant environmental...