-The United Nations The United Nations Health agency today applauded the decision by Australia’s High Court to dismiss a legal challenge from the tobacco industry targeting the country’s new restrictive tobacco marketing laws. In a statement strongly welcoming what she called a “landmark” ruling, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan called on other countries to follow Australia’s example and adopt an equally tough stance on tobacco marketing. Australia is now on track...

-The Hindu Scheme coming for free distribution of medicines through public hospitals and Health centres The government will expand the scope of the NRHM to all towns and cities, by converting it into a National Health Mission (NHM), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced on Wednesday. In his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort here, he said the government was also formulating a new scheme for distribution of free medicines...

-The Times of India PM Manmohan Singh gave the National Health Mission pride of place in his I-Day speech but a fierce policy row clouds the initiative, highlighting sharp differences over a major policy revamp that includes an ambitious plan for universal Health coverage.  Health ministry's unwillingness to pay anything more than lip service to a common Health mission for urban and rural areas is a major flashpoint, although not the only...

-The Times of India After spending around 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) on Health in the past five years, the government is proposing an increase in public spending by half a percentage point to make it 1.58% for the coming five years (2012-17) under the 12th Plan.  This is what the draft chapter on Health in the Plan document says. Health experts and activists are up in arms at this meagre...

-The Times of India Indians are not only bad organ donors, but also averse to accepting brain death as the end of human life.  Doctors say most Indian families think their near and dear ones have a chance to recover till their hearts beat.  This slow acceptance of brain death — patients who have suffered complete and irreversible loss of all brain functions and are clinically and legally dead — is seriously affecting...