-Live Mint In an interview, India’s food minister says the Bill is about making the Right to Food a legal entitlement Prospects for the National Food Security (NFS) Bill—United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s dream legislation—haven’t looked better. Food minister K.V. Thomas, in charge of fine-tuning the contours of the Bill, is confident of steering it through Parliament during the budget session. In an interview, Thomas said the Bill isn’t merely...

-The Times of India As many as 436 people died last year due to serious adverse events (SAE) during clinical trials. Investigations are now on to ascertain how many of the deaths were caused by drugs administered to the trial subjects. Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Friday that deaths could be due to life-threatening diseases such as cancer, heart failure and stroke or side-effects of the drugs or their...

-The Hindu Chaudhuri on IIPM and J&K Police on Afzal Guru approached courts seeking takedown of online material An investigation by The Hindu into the recent blocking of online content related to Arindam Chaudhuri’s IIPM and the hanging of Afzal Guru shows that on February 14 and 15, the Department of Telecom, on orders from various courts, issued as many as three different lists to Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecom service...

-The Hindu Regulating content on community radio is detrimental to its efforts to engage with local communities The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MoIB) organised the 3rd National Community Radio SAMmelan from February 9 to 11 to celebrate a decade of community radio. The celebrations were cut short when Secretary to MoIB Uday Kumar Varma confirmed that community radio stations would not be allowed to broadcast news for some time to come....

-The Hindu Chhattisgarh is all set to allow private diagnostic centres at public health facilities within three months. Critics are appalled by the idea of business space for private players in public health facilities while supporters feel it will improve the pallid health care infrastructure in the State. The architect of the new model, J.P. Mishra, chief of the State Health Resource Centre — the State Health Department’s technical assistance body...