Consumption of energy is a determinant of the socioeconomic status of many citizens across the globe. The majority of rural households in India are dependent on biomass fuels. Existing data on the factors affecting fuel switching in rural India are insufficient to analyze a behavioral change among families. This paper evaluates the influence of four variables income, education, cost of fuel, and clean fuel supply on fuel adoption decisions. To understand the study population's behavioral change, a Household Survey is conducted in 20 villages (in India's rural district). Along with field observation, data are also collected on energy usage at the household level using a formal questionnaire. Binary logistic regression is applied to establish a link between the variables. Both biomass fuels and Liquefied Petroleum Gas are used mostly for cooking. The prevalence of energy stacking behavior is observed even among middle and upper‐income families. Modest evidence for the “energy ladder” hypothesis is seen, however, a “switch over” to cleaner fuels is not.

Background:While the roles and responsibilities of nursing professionals have multiplied over the years, but there are huge concerns with regard to the development of the nursing workforce and human resources (HR) issues for their career growth. The major lacuna is in not involving the nursing professionals in policy framing and decision-making. As a result, there is a leadership crisis of the nursing workforce across India.Objectives:The paper, is part of the WHO supported study, entitled “Study on Nursing and Midwifery in India: a critical review”, is developed with the objective to review the current organizational and management structure for the nursing positions at the State Directorates in India and obtain a Leadership perspective to strengthen nursing management capacities to address maternal health issues.Materials and Methods:The study descriptive and qualitative in nature and the sources of information were both primary and secondary collected from 16 states of India.Results:Since none of the states have neither a Nursing Cell nor the post of Director Nursing, final decision-making powers rest with state health secretaries and medical directors. The nursing management structure majorly managed by senior policy makers from the medical fraternity, and provides very little scope for nursing professionals to participate in policy decision making to bring about reforms. There is no uniformity on HR issues concerning career graphs and pay structures across the states.Conclusions:In order to strengthen nursing as a profession and for facilitating their role at the policy level, more powers and autonomy needs to be given to them and this requires HR policy guidelines for nurses. Setting up a separate nursing directorate, to be headed by a senior nursing professional, is suggested in every state along with a strong nursing division at the National level. This total paradigm shift will empower nursing professionals to take up the leadership role at the policy level to bring about necessary reforms. Across the country, nursing professionals repeatedly echoed one requirement: To reframe nursing leadership at all levels.

The National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW) has been entrusted by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) to undertake monitoring and supervision of annual Sentinel Surveillance (ASS) activity in India since 1998, to ensure that the data obtained are valid. Earlier Regional coordinating teams cooperated with NIHFW in this task. From 2006 onwards, NACO identified five regional institutes covering all the states and Union Territories and Central team members consisting of experts from various organisations for the monitoring and supervision of the ASS cycle to ensure quality control of both epidemiological data collection and HIV testing (NACO 2006a and b). We describe here the process of quality control and observations of the ASS rounds held from 2005 to 2007. The performance of a majority of sites was satisfactory. The testing laboratories usually adhered to standard operating procedures (SOPs). Lacunae observed during the supervisory visits have been enumerated along with the recommendations for the future surveillance rounds.

In India, unsafe water, poor sanitation and unhygienic conditions claim the lives of around 0.5 million children annually under the age of 5 years mainly from diarrhoea. The objective of this paper is to assess the level, trend, progress rate differential in accessibility and availability of safe drinking water and basic sanitation facility within premises across the country. Latest census of India, 2011 data on sources of drinking water and toilet facility was utilized to study above mentioned variables. In terms of level of rural-urban differential in access to safe drinking water in the households in India, in 1981, 26.5% households in rural India and 75.1% households in urban India, depicting a huge gap of around 49% point in access to safe drinking water. But, over the period of time this gap has also declined to 26% point in 1991 to only 8.7% point in 2011. It also examines the association between diarrhoea among children under 5 years of age and other variables such as water, sanitation, various socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of Indian households. Further, the paper provides critical insights into coverage of basic sanitation and safe drinking water supply. India is "on track" to meet the target on access to safe drinking water with sharp reduction in urban-rural disparities. But so far as sanitation facility is concerned, India is lagging far behind its set targets. The paper recommends intensive mobilization of resources to reduce the vast coverage gap in sanitation in our country.