-The Hindu The new Bill should pitch for free care to mental health patients in public hospitals. Persons with mental illness have long been subjected to cruelty, neglect, ridicule and stigma. In the last half-century, medical science has made significant strides in finding some cures and palliatives for afflictions of the mind – of emotion, mood, thinking and behaviour. Parallel to this is the evolution in our ethical frameworks: of human rights,...

-Reuters Abbott Laboratories Inc has instructed its sales representatives in India not to give gifts to doctors, a practice that has been used as a bargaining chip by companies wanting a piece of the country’s burgeoning healthcare market. According to an internal email dated October 11 from Sudarshan Jain, managing director of Abbott Healthcare Pvt. Ltd, the gift-giving has been temporarily suspended. “Only Abbott-approved clinical/scientific literature may be distributed to current and potential...

-The Hindu A recent Supreme Court judgment and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s openly expressed views in favour of privacy have raised concerns that attempts are being made to dilute the spirit of the RTI Act and limit its use. Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, the RTI’s movement’s leading lights, share their worries with Vidya Subrahmaniam. * Seven years after its enactment, has the RTI Act even partially fulfilled its objectives? Has it...

-The Economic Times KOLKATA: The holy Ganga is a poison river today. It's so full of killer pollutants that those living along its banks in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal are more prone to cancer than anywhere else in the country, says a recent study.  Conducted by the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP) under the Indian Council of Medical Research, the national study throws up shocking findings. The river is thick with...

-The Times of India ROHTAK: The Rohtak police have registered a case against CPM politburo member Brinda Karat and several other activists in connection with a violent clash with police during a march in Rohtak on Monday to protest the spate of rape incidents in Haryana. The protest, organized by All-India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) - the women frontal organisation of CPM, was led by Karat and attended by around 400 activists. They...