-PTI Even as floods play havoc in Uttarakhand, several states have opposed the provisions of a 38-year-old Model Flood Bill aimed at minimising losses to life and property in the natural calamity. The Bill, prepared by the Central Water Commission in 1975, will empower authorities to remove dwellings from flood-prone areas. States such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have opposed the draft Bill, saying rehabilitation of people who will be displaced...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The MBBS doctors aspiring to pursue post-graduation will now have to compulsorily undertake a one-year rural posting before becoming eligible for such a course. In a major decision aimed at improving rural healthcare in India, the Union government has decided to make it mandatory for all MBBS doctors to undergo one year rural posting to sit for post-graduation entrance examination. According to health ministry sources, a proposal...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The year before was tough but last year was tougher for the unborn girl child. According to the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau, the number of gender-related foeticides leaped from 132 in 2011 to 210 in 2012 - a jump of nearly 60 per cent, making a mockery of laws that ban pre-natal diagnostic tests. The corresponding figures for 2010 and 2009 were 81 and...

-The Hindu Kitne hi raaste hain mere dil mein jo Poonch ko jaate hai Mein jidhar se chalta hun Poonch pohonch jaata hun. Engraved on a granite plate under the bust of noted Urdu writer Krishan Chander at a public garden in Jammu & Kashmir's Poonch, these intense lines reflect the writer's love for this beautiful border district. But even as he penned these lines, little could he have known that the inspiring...

-The Telegraph The Union health ministry has banned the manufacture and sale of a pain-reliever called dextropropoxyphene (DPPP) amid steadily growing concerns worldwide that this opioid analgesic drug poses several serious health risks, including heart damage. The health ministry, in a drug withdrawal notification, has suspended the manufacture, distribution and sale of all medicines containing DPPP saying the central government has determined that this drug is likely to involve risk to humans...