This study compared evidence from two low caste labouring communities in India: a relatively modernized urban group and a rural group in a backward region. It explored their levels of ill health, their capacities to respond to adult illness and the support they received. In each region, a baseline survey of approximately 1,000 households provided background quantitative evidence with qualitative evidence was collected from about 55 families. HIV infection and AIDS deaths were found to occur in the 'less poor' segments of the study group in both regions. In keeping with the official data, they formed a small proportion of the overall mortality and morbidity in this group. Stigma and discrimination were found to be low but fear of stigma was high, generated by the medical response to AIDS and used opportunistically for personal gains. The study provides insights into the structural determinants of health and coping mechanisms in these communities. The best conditions for a healthy life were found in the group that had a rooted community setting, collective political power, migrant economic support and improved working conditions--the less poor rural group. While improved economic status was associated with better health status, this relationship was stronger when combined with the presence of improved working conditions, with social cohesion at family and community levels and with political power as indicated by levels of organized collective representation and identity formation in workplace, local- and state-level politics. However, the traditional forms of social cohesion are under stress and new forms, moderated by commercial relations, are proving inadequate to meet major household shocks, like adult mortality.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) promised eradication of polio by the year 2000 and certification of eradication by 2005. The first deadline is already a matter of history. With the reporting of polio cases in 2004, the new deadline for polio eradication by 2004 is postponed further. This article seeks to argue that the scientific and technical bodies spear-heading the GPEI, including the WHO, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, have formulated a conceptually flawed strategy and that it is not weak political will that is the central obstacle in this final push for global eradication. The validity of the claims of "near success" by the proponents of the GPEI is also examined in detail. By taking India as a case study, the authors examine the achievements of the GPEI in nine years of intense effort since 1995. They conclude that the GPEI is yet another exercise in mismanaging the health priorities and programs in developing countries in the era of globalization.

Transitioning towards a plant-based diet is considered both ethical and environmentally friendly from a Western perspective of high per capita consumption of flesh foods. However, in contemporary India, beef-eating has emerged as a political act of subversion in the context of its current ban by the Indian state which is transforming unapologetically into a theocracy under the aegis of Hindu fundamentalist groups. To understand the contemporary discourse on beef-eating, it is important to locate it in the discourse prevalent during the Independence movement, when there was an attempt to unify the Hindus to forge a nationalist identity, and to bring the 'outcaste' 'untouchables' -who were a sub-group acknowledged to consume beef -within the Hindu fold of 'caste purity'. Data from an ethnographic study of over fifteen months in a village in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, demonstrate the place of flesh foods, including beef, in the everyday lives of people, and question the concept of a 'normative' Indian diet. The paper argues that contrary to the notion that vegetarianism is morally superior, in the context of Hinduism, where vegetarianism is a marker of upper caste identity, the food hierarchy is a function of the caste structure. Hence, the protests, particularly from the former 'untouchable' caste groups, reclaiming the right to eat transgressive foods as a marker of their identity, poses a serious challenge to upper caste hegemony. The violence which 'vegetarian' India has unleashed on such transgressions has laid open the structural violence embodied in the caste system and questions its claim to moral superiority.

WHO’s new guidance fails to protect women and girls in high prevalence countries

The food and agricultural industry has long had influence in policy making. However, the active promotion of the private sector as the most viable option for resolving problems of nutrition is a more recent phenomenon. This contribution uses two case studies -the construction of a pure protein deficiency disease in the 1960s and the alleged obesity epidemic in present-day India -to illustrate how scientific discourses in nutrition are shaped by the needs of capital and how capital determines scientific truths. Under the guise of partnering with the private sector, the boundaries of science and commerce have become blurred and potential conflicts of interest are no longer clearly demarcated. The entry of the pharmaceutical and food industries into functional foods and supplements has created a new epistemic authority for truth claims whose strength lies in the ability to convince through propaganda with little pretence of a scientific base. Thus, the very industry that has been held responsible for several problems in nutrition is now positioning itself as the deliverer of their solution. The reformulation of food needs as nutritional norms has facilitated the emergence of business as a pivotal player with further opportunities for capital accumulation.