-The United Nations An estimated 910, 000 lives were saved globally in six years due to guidelines intended to ensure that people living with HIV/AIDS are protected from tuberculosis, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) said today, releasing an updated policy on joint prevention, diagnosis and treatment of both diseases. TB is a leading cause of death among people living with HIV/AIDS, which weakens the immune system, making those infected much...

Muhammad Yunus, the economist who founded Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, visited Mumbai recently where he spoke to India Ink about his vision of “social businesses,” his forced departure from Grameen and the recent controversies that have dogged micro-finance in India and elsewhere. An edited, condensed version of the interview follows: Q. The microfinance industry has gone through an existential crisis in the last few years. Why did the industry fall from grace? A. See,...

-AFP Later this month, India will be removed from a dwindling list of countries where polio is considered endemic, a huge achievement made possible by people like Madara, a 76-year-old street hawker.  At a temporary immunisation camp in a slum in the northern district of Ghaziabad, 23 kilometres (14 miles) from New Delhi, he is busy at work shepherding boisterous children into queues.  All around, social workers break open tiny bottles containing a...

-The Times of India   According to the study conducted by a botany student for her PhD thesis, highly protein deficient diet of Korku and Gond tribes in Central India is one of the reasons of malnutrition in them. Mostly these tribal people eat only locally available plant-based diets which are rich sources of carbohydrates, some minerals and vitamins but no proteins. Study suggests identification and consumption of locally available beans, mushrooms and...

India has the worst air pollution in the entire world, beating China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, according to a study released during this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos. Of 132 countries whose environments were surveyed, India ranks dead last in the ‘Air (effects on human health)’ ranking. The annual study, the Environmental Performance Index, is conducted and written by environmental research centers at Yale and Columbia universities with assistance from...