The Quest Features & Footage

|Society|

Barefoot health care

Kerala’s example of palliative care has won global recognition and the 'World Health Organisation' is promoting it as a model for developing countries. But can this model work in other parts of the country? M Suchitra reports. lineimage

Lives strangulated by needle and thread

27-year-old Ratnamma, a garment factory worker, was forced to deliver a baby on the streets of Bangalore. 20-year-old Gayathri was run over by the bus belonging to the Bangalore garment factory where she worked. Garment workers in Bangalore are caught in an exploitative web, reports Padmalatha Ravi.
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Forever forsaken forest people

Dr Yehuda Kovesh from Melbourne, Australia is a Consultant Endocrinologist to the UmonHon among other tribes as well as Visiting Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Havana, Cuba. While on an Indian tour early this month, he visited the Athirappilly waterfall, 70 kms from Kochi. It is his experience with the Adivasis of the near by Vazhachal forest area.
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Thirty years with a load of fish on her head

Crores of taxpayer rupees are spent by government institutes each year on fisheries technology and research. How much does this impact the lives of the average fish hawkers who vend on foot? Is there any impact at all? M Suchitra visited one Kerala hawker, at a coastal village near Kochi.
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Dalit Christians: SC or not?

Are they members of a Church without caste hierarchy, or are they still Dalits, with all that it implies in Hinduism? Dalit Christians find that despite being a numerical majority in the faith in India, the promise of equality is as distant as before. They're taking their protests to Parliament this winter, reports
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Flavours of another era

Resonating with the sound of pattering feet of the students on the wooden stairs and heated discussions on Beethoven, Brecht or Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, for hours over a cup of coffee, smoke from the endless number of cigarettes spiralling up to the ceiling high enough to contain at least three stories of present multi-storied buildings and a floor area to match its majestic columns, waiters in traditional uniform of spotless white and red and high, stiff hats, mixed aroma of coffee, fish fry and mutton Afghani and animated conversation between people whose ages are removed from each other by a decade — the same sights and sounds beckoned from every nook and corner. Strictly opposed to change, Kolkata's Coffee House continues to be a sure-fire draw, reports Kasturi Basu
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Remote Adivasis face healthcare chasm in Kerala

attappadi Despite crores of rupees having been spent in name of tribal and other development programmes in one block of Palakkad district in Kerala, the region suffers from poor access to decent health care. 80 per cent of the adivasi population here are living in abject poverty. M Suchitra reports.
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|Society|

Jumbo Concerns

A 12-member task force has recommended to make elephant a National heritage Animal and to impose strict restrictions on trapping, taming, buying selling and transporting elephants. Elephants may not be available for temple festivals as of yore. However, animal rights groups are all in praise for the MoEF's initiative to end cruelty towards elephants. M Suchitra reports.
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