More than 89,000 sewer and septic tank workers have been formally validated under India’s principal sanitation-worker welfare scheme since 2023, and official profiling data indicate that over 90 per cent of those identified belong to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, or Other Backwards Class communities — underscoring sanitation work’s long-documented association with caste in India. Against…
Whenever historians look back at India’s fight against COVID-19 through the lens of its vaccination drive, two words will likely stand out: rate and price. By June 2021, the Serum Institute of India, under CEO Adar Poonawalla, with the ability to export 280 million+ doses of its vaccine, Covishield, to 70 countries in that single…
In 1978, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw began a business called Biocon out of her Bangalore garage with 10,000 in capital, and a product no one in India was making. It was for industrial applications derived from enzyme-based bio fermentation. She was rejected for a loan when a bank manager asked whether it would help her run a…
₹763 crore over 5 years. That is the number next to Rohini Nilekani’s name on the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2025. She is also known as India’s Most Generous Woman, a title earned by donating ₹204 crore in a single financial year. The number is large enough to stop a conversation. However, Nilekani has…
The temperatures inside government schools in TN can reach roughly 42 degrees Celsius in May. The students fan notebooks over their faces and pretend to study inside with no proper ventilation or air conditioning. The stone walls of the schools hold heat from the day before. This picture prompted an IAS officer, Supriya Sahu, to…
Every September 8, World Physiotherapy Day is commemorated throughout the world. As expected, the theme for the 2026 year, which is proposed by World Physiotherapy, the global organization representing over 600,000 physiotherapists in 128 member countries, relates to the prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of cardiovascular diseases and strokes using physiotherapy and physical activity. Cardiovascular disease…
The Union government now has a combined outlay of Rs 11,639 crore committed to the Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP), its flagship scheme for developing villages along India’s international land border, according to a Press Information Bureau feature released this month. The Ministry of Home Affairs, which frames border residents as the eyes and ears of…
The World Health Organisation has, on 5 September 2026, certified that Thailand has achieved elimination of rubella as a public health problem, making Thailand the seventh country in the South-East Asia region of the WHO to achieve this goal. This certification has been granted following an assessment of the country’s data on rubella surveillance, laboratories,…
When more than 3,800 children are rescued from labour, the number is both a measure of enforcement and a reminder of the problem that still exists beneath the surface. A recent Press Information Bureau (PIB) release says the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), in collaboration with State governments and Union Territory administrations, rescued over 3,800…
The Coal India subsidiary, Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL), launched Special Campaign 6.0 at its headquarters on September 4, 2026. The campaign aligns with the “Waste to Wealth” campaign promoted by the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances and with the Ministry of Coal’s emphasis on managing e-waste. CMD Satish Jha inaugurated the campaign in…
