With international talks on climate change starting next week in Copenhagen, India staked out its early position on Thursday by announcing that it would slow the growth of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, while also leaving open the possibility of taking bolder steps if an “equitable” deal can be reached during the negotiations. The Indian initiative, presented in Parliament by the country’s top environmental official, means that India has...

A new United Nations-backed report calls on countries in the Pacific Ocean region to scale up their response to HIV and AIDS, which is being fuelled in the region by violence against women, stigma and unprotected sex. According to “Turning the tide: an OPEN strategy for a response to AIDS in the Pacific,” the first report published by the Commission on AIDS in the Pacific, an estimated 59,000 people were...

Children are now much higher on the global AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) agenda and there is a major shift in commitment, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’s Board, to increase support for Preventing Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT). India has received extended support from the Global Fund for Preventing Parent-To-Child Transmission (PPTCT), according to the Fourth Stocktaking Report, produced by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund,...

Several organisations working on issues surrounding HIV/AIDS on Monday made a vociferous demand for the immediate tabling of the HIV/AIDS Bill, 2009. The Bill was drafted and finalised in 2006 by the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry after country-wide consultations with stakeholders and sent to the Law Ministry. From 2007 to October 2009, the Law Ministry released four drafts, each omitting several critical provisions aimed at promoting and protecting...

Twenty-five years ago this week, a gas leak at a Union Carbide chemicals plant in Bhopal released 40 tonnes of poisonous gases over the Indian city, killing thousands and injuring tens of thousands. To this day, many of the survivors live in crowded shacks in the slums that line the old factory walls. The people here are not the only ones who have been affected, however. The leak, which is often...