-The Hindu So now we know why Gujarat has such appalling numbers when it comes to malnourished children. Asked by the Wall Street Journal what he was doing about the persistently high rates of malnutrition in his State, Chief Minister Narendra Modi lamented the fact that young girls just don’t listen to mummy. “If a mother tells her daughter to have milk, they’ll have a fight. She’ll tell her mother, ‘I...

-The Hindu The Planning Commission’s draft 12th Plan for Health has attracted much debate and controversy. Critics have been quick to direct their attention at two issues in it — the proposed increase in government Health spending from one per cent to 1.58 per cent of GDP, and the “managed care model.” The spending increase was rightly felt to be grossly inadequate to move India towards achieving universal Health care. The...

-PTI New radiation norms for telecom towers come into force from tomorrow, allowing only a tenth of the emission permitted by the existing guidelines. The move is a precautionary one aimed at addressing public Health concerns, although a government-appointed expert panel has found no direct link between Health and exposure to the electromagnetic frequency radiation from mobile towers. The bulk of the expected fall in emission levels has already been achieved, since 95...

-The Times of India Whichever way you slice and dice the data, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's statement about causes of malnutrition in the state he has been ruling for over a decade is wrong. In an interview to the Wall Street Journal, Modi had said malnutrition exists in Gujarat because it is "by and large a vegetarian state" and also because it is a middle class state which is "more...

-The Times of India Criticized for tardy probe progress coupled with acute shortage of officers to investigate cases, the CBI got a relief in National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam investigations as the Uttar Pradesh government has constituted a special court for all the Health scheme fraud cases. The UP government issued a notification on August 28, constituting a Special Court especially for NRHM cases in Ghaziabad. The court of Session Judge...