By Anjali Deshpande

The Union Ministry of Health is examining the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act with a view to raising the time limit for abortion from 20 weeks to 24 weeks. What would the moral and ethical implications of this move be? And why has the women’s movement in India been strangely silent on these important developments? More...

With smoking in offices and private establishments banned from October 2, India is finally recognising that tobacco consumption is a major public health problem. But the ban by itself will not work. We need to reduce accessibility to all tobacco products, including gutkha, by taxing them out of reach and banning their sale in public places, says Deepanjali Bhas More...

By Rashme Sehgal

After the furore over the direct nature of India’s Adolescence Education Programme last year, NACO has come up with a sexuality education module that dare not mention ‘intercourse’ or ‘safe sex’ or even ‘condoms’. Over 30 groups working with sexuality have rejected the material More...

By Alok Prakash Putul

India passed the Leprosy Act in 1898 to ensure that leprosy patients did not face discrimination. A hundred years on, Indian laws and regulations do just that. Legislation in several states prevents leprosy patients from obtaining a driving licence, travelling in trains, and contesting panchayat elections. And many marriage laws make “contracting leprosy” grounds for divorce More...

By Benita Sen

Cancer patient Roshanara’s morphine tablets keep her relatively pain-free. Morphine is part of palliative care, which allows terminally ill patients to live a life of dignity, free of pain. Why, then, is it so scarce in India? More...

By Aditi Rao

Over 4,000 people live in the Delhi leprosy complex. Though leprosy has been eliminated -- not eradicated -- in India, the stigma and discrimination that leprosy patients and their children face is far from eliminated, and it is only in colonies like this one that they can find companionship and a home More...

By Sushmita Malaviya

Recent data from NFHS-III reveals that an overwhelming majority of Indians feel their children should be taught about sexual behaviour and HIV/AIDS in school. Nevertheless, Uttar Pradesh, with the country’s highest infant mortality rate and high maternal mortality and fertility rates, has chosen to ban its very successful Adolescent Education Programme in schools across the state More...

By N P Chekkutty

Two reasons are attributed to the return of many epidemics to Kerala, a state that had achieved developed-country status in all the major human development indices: erosion of the grassroots-level public healthcare system that once thrived on government support, and dysfunctional municipal systems that do not deal effectively with waste-disposal More...

By Bharathi Ghanashyam

Why is AIDS awareness so limited, despite 20 years of national and international efforts? Is it time to devise more creative and innovative measures, such as having one health worker in each primary health centre dedicated to spreading awareness on HIV/AIDS? More...

By Shelley Seale

Yesu Babu of Vambay Colony in Vijayawada is 12. He has lost both his parents to AIDS. His younger brother is positive. There are almost 2 million AIDS orphans like him in India. But the national and global response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in India has virtually ignored children More...

By Rupa Chinai

In the first such major experiment of its kind in the country, the Manas project trains local people in Goa to deal with common mental health disorders, including depression, within the primary health setting More...

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