Ministers of health, donor agencies, philanthropists, and international agencies will meet at Bamako, Mali, in November, 2008, to review global priorities for health research. These individuals and organisations previously set health priorities for WHO, either through its regular budget or extra-budgetary funds. We asked what insights can be gained as to their priorities from previous decisions within the context of WHO.

The amalgamation of regional rural banks has been completed. This paper builds up a case against it. Amalgamation would be a death blow to the credit starved rural poor, most of whom are small and marginal farmers, agricultural and landless labourers, and artisans. The paper calls for an immediate de-amalgamation of RRBS in the interest of the vast majority of the rural poor.

Why does a developing nation have such an ambitious space programme? Subhadra Menon traces its foundations back to the work of one visionary physicist 60 years ago.

Rising input prices have almost sounded the death knell for the farmer. Is there a way out? A special report published in Down To Earth.

Scientists hope that the next U.S. president will devote more of the billion-dollar climate change research program to impacts.

Malaria

The world