Medicine heals, but this fact doesn`t hold true for every 300th patient admitted to hospital. Call it the law of averages or blame human error for it, but the World Health Organization believes that one in 10 hospital admissions leads to an adverse event and one in 300 admissions in death. An adverse event could range from the patient having to spend an extra day in hospital or missing a dose...

As the World Bank and International Monetary Fund convene for their annual Spring Meetings here, soaring food prices are high on the agenda, prompting some analysts to fast-forward to 2050 and the question of how to nourish the mid-century's estimated world population of 8.9 billion people – the majority of whom will live in developing countries. "More poor people are suffering and more people could become poor because of high and...

60 % living alone or in nuclear families 85.9 % unaware of their human rights Every sixth old person living in urban areas in the country does not get proper food, every third old person does not get proper medicine or health care in old age and every second old person does not receive due respect or good treatment from family member or society. These are among the findings of a study on...

Distribution of basic food grains and fuel at controlled prices every month through the Public Distribution System (PDS) could be the largest service provided by the Indian State, touching as it does over 65 million families through a network of nearly half a million retail shops. Given that the urban middle class has little stake in the health of the PDS, there have to be some compelling reasons for the...

Ahead of the first meeting of an expert committee of scientists to determine the kind of tests to be conducted on genetically-modified brinjal, commonly known as Bt brinjal, a prominent member of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) has resigned from the panel. The resignation of P Anand Kumar comes following an appeal by the co-chair of the panel at its last meeting to members to quit if they had a...