-Live Mint Incidents at Bhopal and Indore highlight irregularities and ethical violations in some trials In 2004, doctors at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC), established exclusively for treating the victims of the 1984 gas leak, recruited unsuspecting survivors for clinical trials without their knowledge or consent; 14 participants died during the course of the trials. Together with the episode in Indore’s Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital (that Mint reported on 10...

-The Indian Express A coal mine worker in Jharkhand and an expert on the coal industry called to protest against what he called was the noora kushti (shadowboxing) going on in Delhi. The power of the coal players was earlier seen in Jharkhand politics, he said, but now we see it in Delhi. Our players are small, yours are big and powerful. With the CBI itself unearthing prima facie evidence of...

-PTI Employees of public sector banks have gone on two-day nationwide strike today opposing banking sector reforms and Outsourcing of non-core activities, affecting operations. Several private sector banks, foreign banks and ATMs, however, continued to operate normally. The strike call was given by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella organisation of nine unions of employees and officers of PSU banks. They are protesting against banking sector reforms and unilateral implementation of...

-Live Mint State’s role to diminish from that of provider to manager, making way for private companies, individual practitioners The government is set to relinquish its role as a provider of primary healthcare, making way for private companies and individual medical practitioners to take the lead in offering clinical services, and focus on preventive interventions such as immunization and HIV testing. The move is in line with the government’s approach of Outsourcing its...

-The Business Standard Hiring contract labour must come with more commitments Almost a third of India’s organised labour force is on contract. This is an inevitable consequence of archaic labour laws that make it impossible for India Inc to disengage permanent workers even if they can’t afford them, don’t need them or they don’t perform. Companies such as Maruti Suzuki India have thus used contract workers liberally — almost half the workers...