A variety of water reforms are being undertaken in different parts of the country. This paper discusses a project in the twin cities of Hubli-Dharwad in north Karnataka, a pilot for 24/7 functioning as well as for the institutional and other changes required for private sector participation in urban areas. April 5-11, 2008

The Internet is a building block of the information society as such its governance is an important issue. What are the issues related to internet governance and how can they be dealt with? How may the Internet Governance Forum contribute to participatory decision-making? These are important issues ahead of the next IGF meeting, to be held in India in end-2008. April 5-11, 2008

This article focuses on the main issues vital for the survival of the International Monetary Fund in the context of rapid and almost revolutionary changes in the world's money and capital markets, the rise of fast growing, emerging economies, and the decline in the use of the institution's resources and consequently in its income. It also discusses the structure of the IMF, the inadequacy of the instruments it currently employs and the new ones being contemplated as part of the Medium-Term Strategy it designed recently. April 5-11, 2008

Every year on March 24, observed as World Tuberculosis Day, India takes stock of the progress of the Directly Observed Treatment Scheme (DOTS), launched as the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) in 1997. The results of the stocktaking are not very encouraging. (Editorial) April 5-11, 2008

With the long awaited approval of the post-Parthasarathy Committee common guidelines for watershed development finally being given in February 2008, it is time now to push hard for actualising the suggested radical reforms at the cutting edge level of implementation.

This study attempts to analyse the effects of some selected demographic and socio-economic predictor variables on the likelihood of immunisation of a child for six vaccine-preventable diseases covered under the Universal Immunisation Programme. It focuses on immunisation coverage (a) at the all India level, (b) in rural and urban areas, (c) in Bihar, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, and (d) for three groups of states, the empowered action group, north-eastern and other states. The study applies a logistic regression model to National Family Health Survey-2 (1998-99) data.

The pivot around which the improvement of maternal health revolved was the Indian woman doctor and her growing presence from the 1900s was to be seen at hospitals and welfare centres in the Bombay presidency, promoting knowledge of more hygienic birthing methods and safe infant care.

This essay does not probe why there was a malarial epidemic in Bengal in the 19th century, instead it explores how a series of dispersed and dissimilar debilities came to be represented as a single, continuous epidemic of malaria in Bengal and beyond for over most of the 19th century. The making of the Burdwan fever epidemic can hardly be ascribed to conveniently traceable intentions or a straightforward series of causes. The history of the unfolding of the epidemic hints at a "game of relationships'.

This study re-examines the notions in colonial India about the causes of malaria, specifically discussing the environmental reasons pointed to at the time. It shows how and to what extent some of the widely held ideas of the colonial era on environmental causation contributed to and, at the same time, shaped a kind of environmental awareness, which became a part of medico-social thinking in India. It also adds a new dimension to the thinking on malaria in colonial India by situating the environmental paradigm within a social and economic context.

This is an investigation into how serious the kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis) situation was in colonial Bihar, what the government's policy was to control it and how the people responded to it. Until 1903, medical men had little idea about the true nature of this disease, which spread rapidly in the wake of the opening up of communication by rail and road. British medical intervention against kala-azar succeeded only in 1919 with the introduction of the antimony treatment.