-The Hindu Chief secretaries, registrars general of High Courts will be liable for non-compliance. New Delhi: The Supreme Court has upped the ante on the States, Union Territories and High Courts which have not provided it with details of criminal cases pending against sitting lawmakers, warning that their Chief Secretaries and Registrars General will be made personally liable for non-compliance. The Centre informed the court that so far a dozen such courts had...

-Ideas for India Commenting on the concept of evidence-based policy, Jean Drèze argues that the relation between evidence and policy needs further thought. Based on his involvement with social policy in India, he believes that while economists can contribute to more informed policy discussions and public debates they ought to be cautious in offering advice on policy design. Once upon a time, ‘evidence’ was widely confused with randomised controlled trials (RCTs). The...

-Deccan Chronicle Ayush ministry states that experience and evidence of effectiveness of these drugs is based on textual rationale and published in literature. Hyderabad: Fraudsters would flourish if patented or proprietary Ayruvedic, Siddha and Unani products are given licence without insisting on safety trials, industry experts and medical professionals have stated. The Centre has issued drug regulators in states a directive to issue licenses to patented and proprietary products of Ayurvedic, Siddha and...

-Livemint.com WHO says the Indian govt should ‘reconsider’ the compensation clause because an approval to the rules in the current form would affect the conduct of clinical trials in India New Delhi: The World Health Organization (WHO) has told the central government that the United Nations (UN) agency’s work with India would be “hampered” and drug companies driven away if the government goes ahead with stringent draft rules for compensation in case...

-Livemint.com It is important to give preference to those approaches that help the poor the most for every rupee spent, no matter how they are labelled Sometimes in life, it is clear that the direct approach isn’t the best one. This is true in many areas, even when it comes to policymaking. Take, as an example, the area of extreme poverty. It seems logical, at first, that the most effective response should...