The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have agreed to commit Rs 500 crore for the execution of health projects in selected districts of Bihar. The 'in principle' agreement towards this end was finalised during a daylong meeting here recently between State officials led by Principal Secretary (Health) C K Mishra and a visiting Gates Foundation team. The 11-member Foundation team, headed by Ashok Alexander, consented during the meeting to offer "co-operation...

Amnesty International has appointed Salil Shetty, an Indian who headed the UN Millennium Campaign, as its next secretary general. Shetty takes over the job in June 2010, succeeding Irene Khan who stepped down after eight years as Amnesty Secretary General on Dec 31, 2009. Amnesty - the global human rights watchdog - said Shetty, with a strong track record in the non-government and inter-government sectors, will lead its 50th anniversary...

Maoist-hit Koraput region will soon find a place on the international map, but for a different reason. The region is going to be recognised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation as a “globally important agriculture heritage system” on the pattern of world heritage sites declared by the Unesco, said eminent agro scientist M.S. Swaminathan here today. Considering the extraordinary biological and agricultural diversity of the Koraput region, which needs to be protected...

A state government scheme to pay for hospital treatment of the poor has led to an organ racket, with many private hospitals duping illiterate young women and removing their uterus for illegal sale, a minister has acknowledged. Altogether 21,000 hysterectomies (uterus removals) have been done across Andhra Pradesh under the Rajiv Arogyasree health insurance scheme since it was launched in 2007 for below-poverty-line (BPL) families, a health directorate probe has shown. Most...

Violence in West Bengal’s western districts has reached crisis proportions. Each day, one or more cadre member or sympathizer of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPM] is killed either by Maoists or the Trinamul Congress (TMC). The Maoists have found common cause with the TMC, a breakaway from the Congress Party in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee, whose authoritarian populism draws from both Juan and Evita Peron, leads the TMC. Backed...