After a government report confirmed major ethical violations in trials of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccines on Indian schoolgirls, senior doctors are calling for transparency in clinical trials conducted under private-public partnerships. The report is yet to be placed in the public domain, but its contents were revealed early May by senior doctors who assisted in its preparation, sparking outrage among public health advocates and women’s rights groups. HPV is an umbrella...
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Food Security Bill: Women made heads of households selected for food grain distribution by Binoy Prabhakar
In a radical departure from official welfare norms, the draft Food Security Bill has made adult women heads of households selected for distribution of subsidised food grain. This highly unusual move for general welfare schemes wasn't part of the original discussions on the food bill. The bill has shaped into the big daddy, or in this case the big mummy, of all welfare schemes by providing free food to pregnant...
More »Focus on food, not vote by Shankkar Aiyar
The debate over the National Food Security Act has been reduced to a circus for political parties, NGOs and the National Advisory Council to perform verbal calisthenics. The discussion on who is entitled, who is not entitled and who should be entitled has gone on for over two years. The discourse is deteriorating into informed nit-picking. The time for debate is over; the time for decision is overdue. Let us get...
More »Rs 17,000-cr warning for India's food gamble by Samar Halarnkar
Unpaid bills of Rs 17,000 crore — and growing — have revealed hidden food subsidies and acute financial mismanagement as the government prepares to adopt the costliest, most ambitious legislation of its tenure. Documents accessed by Hindustan Times reveal this is the money the government now owes the state-run Food Corporation of India (FCI), hampering its mammoth operation of buying grain from the farmer, storing it and selling it cheaply...
More »Planning Commission's definition of BPL a mockery: CPI(M)
-The Hindu The CPI(Marxist) on Thursday described the Planning Commission's definition of BPL as “a mockery and a fraud” and found fault with the UPA government for not being able to deliver on its two-year-old promise of food security legislation. In an editorial in the latest edition of the party organ People's Democracy, the party referred to the ongoing proceedings on a PIL before the Supreme Court, regarding the Planning Commission's...
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