-The Indian Express The incentive structure, currently skewed in favour of rice and wheat, needs to become crop-neutral High prices of pulses are upsetting the food budget of many poor families. Soaring retail prices of dals — urad at Rs. 170/kg, tur/arhar at Rs160/kg, gram/chickpea at Rs 127/kg, moong at Rs 111/kg and masoor at Rs 100/kg — have made dal a luxury for the dal-bhaat and dal-roti eating population. But not...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Free health-care services during childbirth remain a pipe dream for most of India's poor, whether it relates to diagnostic tests, medicines, transport or even food, despite the Union health ministry launching a "free entitlements" programme five years ago. The families of most women who seek childbirth in government hospitals are forced to pay for supposedly "free" services, at times experiencing catastrophic expenditures likely to accentuate their poverty, two...

-Hindustan Times Chennai: The year was 1986. It was a hot, humid day in June when Dr Suniti Solomon first discovered that the deadly HIV/AIDS virus had made its way to India. Then a young doctor, Suniti was testing 100 sex workers as a part of a research project at the Madras Medical College (MMC). Little did she known that a small, humble Madras laboratory’s preliminary research would precipitate a medical challenge on...

-The Hindu Septicemia (or, sepsis) is the leading cause for deaths in hospitals worldwide. A novel, simple, low-cost device that quickly diagnoses septicaemia at bedside has been developed by an IIT Delhi researcher working along with a Consultant from Global Medical Education and Research Foundation, Hyderabad. Septicemia (or, sepsis) is the leading cause for deaths in hospitals worldwide. According to a paper published in October 2015 in the journal Analytical Chemistry, there are...

-The Hindu In a much-needed measure to keep the consumption of chewing tobacco under check, the Delhi government has extended by a year the ban on the sale, purchase and storage of all forms of chewable tobacco — scented, flavoured and mixed — sold in forms such as gutka, pan masala, khaini and zarda. The extension of the ban has come after the previous notification expired recently. In 2012, a few...