Poor get free healthcare

Inclusive growth is not just a buzzword; it is a vital requirement for developing democratic nations like India. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), made possible by ubiquitous broadband infrastructure and affordable access to computing, can play a pivotal role in the nation's continued accelerated growth needs. This growth is one that penetrates down to every citizen.

Our politics of poverty is characterised by our poverty of politics. Although poverty is the overwhelming fact of our national life, it is hardly the theme of our politics.

In the midst of a busy calendar when the nation is in the grip of a new and unusual global pandemic, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad spoke to Deputy Editor Damayanti Datta. Excerpts:

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad
Q. The H1N1 virus has arrived finally in India and is spreading fast. How scared should we be?

A green backdrop in the wake of the recent monsoon fails to hide the stumps of fullygrown Sagaun trees that once stood on Kashiram"s fields in Dadudhana village of Betul district. The septuagenarian Dalit, along with his son Ramcharan, still awaits payment from a dodgy contractor who logged 200 trees of precious timber on his private land.
A hapless Bhimrao and Shanta

The district shot to national prominence when it elected Sonia Gandhi to the Lok Sabha, but in more recent times, Bellary in Karnataka has stayed in the news because of its mining tycoons"the Gali Reddy brothers, two of whom are members of the state Cabinet.

It is the favourite mantra of policy makers, politicians and prescribing economists. And they chant it relentlessly as an antidote to recession and a supplement to boost growth. Tragically though, for all the chanting of the infrastructure mantra the Government has not been able to change the religion of sloth on the ground.

You are what your numbers are. 0-5-10-25 is the quickest way to sum you up: 0, if your life is tobacco free, 5 for servings of fruits or veggies, 10 for walking 10,000 steps (or 30 minutes of aerobic activity) and 25 for keeping your body mass index below that cut off. That

The 2009 Budget is a politically powered effort to counter the effects of the global slowdown. Higher allocations across schemes for rural India are expected to trigger demand at the bottom of the pyramid and drag the economy out of the trough. The idea, though, is a big gamble. Already fiscal deficit is 6.8 per cent and borrowings at a record high.

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After 12 days of talks among delegates from 182 countries at the UN Climate Conference in Bonn which ended on June 12, the world seemed no closer to staving off the threat of global warming and its catastrophic consequences.