-The Hindu Medicines remain overpriced and unaffordable in India. In a country mired in poverty, medical debt remains the second biggest factor for keeping millions in poverty. The international pharmaceutical industry has found its cash cow in India’s beleaguered consumers. With a minimum wage of Rs.250/day for a government worker, a basic wage worker afflicted with a chronic disease like multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis faces penury. His treatment, with drug combinations, which works out...

-Hindustan Times Declining data cost is boosting data traffic and internet usage in India and will take rural users to 87 million by December-end and 106 million by end-March 2016, a study by the communications ministry says. India has overtaken US and is behind only China on internet usage, and the government expects user-base to hit 450 million by next year-end. “Our studies have shown that the growth of e-commerce activities and government-to-citizen online...

-Hindustan Times School textbooks in recent decades have frequently become battlegrounds for ideological contestation in India. Most textbook wars are to advance majoritarian perspectives on history and culture. However, a recent very different textbook skirmish broke out about the public and private sectors in healthcare. The story of this ideological clash is bemusing and instructive, illuminating competing perspectives on the nature of education, healthcare and markets in new India. This clash surfaced...

-Down to Earth From providing agricultural information for specific countries to identifying trends in the sector, censuses serve a variety of purpose In the backdrop of a round of country-driven agricultural censuses which will begin in 2016 to gather information and statistics on the global agriculture sector, senior FAO statiscian Jairo Castano discusses with Down To Earth the importance of the exercise. * How helpful are agricultural censuses in gathering information and statistics...

-The Times of India LUCKNOW: A scientifically validated anti-diabetes herbal drug, named 'BGR-34', was launched by a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) lab in Lucknow on Sunday. A combination of natural extracts from plants, the drug is based on Ayurveda and has no side effects. The drug is for management of type-II diabetes mellitus. The drug has been jointly developed by two CSIR laboratories, National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) and...