That hospital births curb mother and child deaths is probably a no brainer. Convincing expectant mothers to get admitted to a hospital is only part of the problem in India’s rural healthcare system. The other challenge is abysmal infrastructure: There is just one hospital bed for every 10,000 Indians living in villages and one in 10 primary health centres in rural areas stumble along without doctors. The result is a human tragedy....

Tension prevailed in the Surya Nagar area of this Haryana district Tuesday after stray incidents of violence following a dispute between the members of the Dalit and Jat communities, police said. 'Yesterday (Monday) night a buffalo, belonging to a member of Dalit community, collided with a vehicle that was owned by a Jat youth. At that time there were some heated arguments but the situation was somehow controlled,' a police...

The government has failed to effectively implement its immunization programmes targeted at reducing child mortality. Of the 113 deaths due to diphtheria — a vaccine-preventable disease — in the country in 2009, 82 occurred in Delhi. According to a report on the national health profile released by the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence, there has also been a staggering increase in cases of pertussis (whooping cough) from 75 in 2008...

Children of a remote north-east village Dibrual Dehingio Gaon are now studying in nearby English medium schools, 40 people of Padamunda village in Orissa are employed in transportation business in nearby town and habitants of flood-prone regions of Bihar are no longer starving during rainy seasons; thanks to construction of rural roads under country’s flagship programme Bharat Nirman. Better connectivity has pushed up agricultural income in rural India by 17.6%...

The word ‘Mitanin’ was derived from a Chhattisgarhi custom, where a ‘mitanin’ is a girl bonded ceremoniously in her childhood to another girl as a lifelong friend IT IS quite common for tractors in rural India to haul all kinds of unusual cargo. Even then, a late night emergency shuttle, from a small home in Narayanpaal village in the backward Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, to ferry a pregnant woman in...