The Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has given clearance to the department of atomic energy to set up a neutrino observatory  in Bodi West Hills reserved forest in Theni district in south Tamil Nadu. However, the approval is subject to conditions that the project does not entail cutting down trees or causing damage to the forest cover. The MoEF  has also insisted on measures to minimize the effect...

India's health industry was crippled back in 2008, when the then Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss decided to shut down three public sector vaccine units — to give contracts to a private firm. Two years back when the three public sector vaccine units were shut down, it led to a shortage of critical vaccines like BCG, DPT and Anti TB vaccines in India. CNN-IBN has accessed the probe report, which has found...

A patent is an artificial property right; it is created by the government, and would not exist if there were no government or if it did not grant patents. It is then for the government to decide whether to grant a patent or not. But a government would not normally make the decision arbitrarily; it would follow some rules. The rules universally followed are novelty, non-obviousness and commercial value. A...

The report of the Javid Chowdhury Committee facilitated the resumption, in February 2010, of vaccine production in the three public sector units, one in Himachal Pradesh and the other two in Tamil Nadu. Javid Chowdhury, a former Health Secretary of the Government of India, recommended that the suspension of their licenses for manufacturing vaccines in 2008 should be revoked in the public interest and on the strength of the compliance...

A timely reality check on public policies in the developing world, the Global Hunger Index 2010, (GHI) released by the International Food Policy Research Institute, reveals the disturbing fact that the number of hungry people in the world hovers around the one-billion mark. Although this year's estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organisation place the figure at 925 million, barely a year ago, at the height of the recession, “the...