India will soon ban blood tests to detect tuberculosis (TB) that are widely available across the country.  An expert group set up by the Drug Controller General of India has found that blood tests are mostly inaccurate for TB detection. It has recommended to the Union health ministry to immediately ban them.  A ministry official said "The DCGI had set up an eight-member committee to look at whether a proposal by the...

-The Telegraph   The Supreme Court today asked the Centre to ensure that drug prices go down, not up, if and when a new price control policy comes into force. “Prices may go down but should not go up because of policy,” Justice S.J. Mukhopadhyay, sitting alongside senior judge G.S. Singhvi, said. “Bring it down, don’t escalate it in the name of policy,” the bench told additional solicitor-general Parag Tripathi, who was speaking...

‘Government afraid of civil society groups' Irom Sharmila, whose fast will enter the 12th year on Saturday, was produced on Friday in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Imphal East, on the completion of her one-year detention. The law under which she is detained permits the authority to detain her for one year at one go. As she refused to break her world-record fast she was remanded in judicial custody for...

-The Telegraph   The Arjun Munda government today unveiled a host of health initiatives for the benefit of villagers, especially expecting mothers and schoolchildren, and flagged off a number of specialised mobile clinics, indicating its seriousness about improving medical standards across the length and breath of Jharkhand. Among the schemes launched by the chief minister at a state health department organised function at Haribansh Tana Bhagat Stadium were a school health programme that...

IF YOU walked down the streets of Jantar Mantar in New Delhi between 3-5 August, you would see what TV cameras aren’t putting out on primetime news. Thousands of farmers from Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh to Rohtak in Haryana. On protest. Against the systematic grabbing of their land by various state governments across the political spectrum. On one side of the road, on large green carpets, are about 3,000 farmers,...