-PTI JOHANNESBURG: States may not prevent access to websites because they display opinions or beliefs that are critical of governments or established systems of thought, UN Human Rights Commissioner Navanethem "Navi" Pillay said here. Pillay, a South African of Indian Tamil origin, was delivering a lecture on 'Human Rights Achievements and Challenges in a Rapidly Changing World' at the University of the Witwatersrand as part of South Africa's celebration of Human Rights...
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U.K. MPs vote against anti-caste legislation-Hasan Suroor
-The Hindu United Kingdom: Britain's Dalit immigrants on Wednesday suffered a setback in their long-standing campaign for an anti-caste legislation when the House of Commons rejected a motion to amend the Equality Act to ban discrimination on the basis of caste. Had the proposal gone through, it would have provided for discrimination on the basis of caste to be treated on par with racial discrimination. It was defeated by motion 307 to...
More »PSU banks express reservation against usage of Aadhaar number for cash-transfers -Ahona Ghosh & M Rajshekhar
-The Economic Times The government's plan to make the Aadhaar number the centrepiece of the cash-transfer system is now facing opposition from a new quarter: banks. Several banks, led by the State Bank of India, have expressed reservation against jettisoning their current systems in favour of the platform created by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which issues the Aadhaar number and wants to make it the basis to authenticate...
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KEY TRENDS • According to National Sample Survey report no. 583: Persons with Disabilities in India, the percentage of persons with disability who received aid/help from Government was 21.8 percent, 1.8 percent received aid/help from organisation other than Government and another 76.4 percent did not receive aid/ help *8 • As per National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4), the Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR) was 57.2 per 1,000 live births (for the non-STs it was 38.5)...
More »SC’s Novartis judgement renews focus on accessible medicine
The recent Supreme Court judgment dismissing pharma giant Novartis’ claim for patent protections in India for its award-winning and prohibitively priced anti-leukemia drug Glivec has renewed the focus on accessibly-priced drugs – in particular the failure of the Indian public healthcare system and health policy to ensure affordable drugs for all. Studies show that as much as 70% of health spending in India comes from out-of-pocket payments, with 50-80% of...
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