Just in case our friends in the media were looking for more evidence, a new ILO report clinches the connection between old age pension and a country’s well being. The ILO report “World Social Security Report 2010/11: Providing coverage in times of crisis and beyond” puts India’s social security coverage in perspective of its peers. (the report can be accessed at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_146566.pdf.  India is not only nearly at the bottom...

Doctors across India who encounter patients with tuberculosis will have to disclose the identity, age, sex, and address of each patient to local Health authorities under an order issued this week by the Union Health ministry. The Health ministry said today that it is essential to have complete information as part of its efforts to ensure that patients receive proper diagnosis and therapy and to curb the emergence and spread of...

-The Telegraph The decade-long flow of funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation into India’s HIV control efforts will stop from June 2013, a foundation official said today, intensifying fears among sections of Health activists about the future of the programme. Avahan was the first large-scale Health initiative in India to be supported by the foundation, said to be t he world’s largest philanthropic organisation, and will be the first to...

The debate about essential-medicine pricing and access in India illustrates the difficulties inherent in establishing policies that serve conflicting public interests in achieving goals such as caring well and ensuring safety for all, while also pursuing financially-sustainable success in scientific innovation and trade. It highlights problems facing those interested in continuing drug and vaccines development and ensuring that, once marketed, such products contribute effectively to improving public Health. Modern pharmaceuticals...

-CNN-IBN More than 3000 working poor are right now agitating at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, under the banner of Pension Parishad as the curtains are up on the 'right to pension' campaign. Spearheaded by Aruna Roy, the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan leader and member of the National Advisory Council (NAC), the campaign seeks universalisation of a minimum pension of Rs 2000 per person per month for all elderly citizens of...