-The Telegraph New Delhi: The income tax department has allowed referral kickbacks paid to doctors by private hospitals, nursing homes and diagnostic centres and spending on advertisements by doctors as expenses despite such expenditure being disallowed and unethical, a parliamentary panel said on Thursday. The public accounts committee for the Union finance ministry's department of revenue has cited an audit that found that in 19 instances in eight states, income-tax officers had...

-The Indian Express Rising cases of leprosy among Adivasis call for urgent public action. India officially eliminated Leprosy in 2005 by bringing the Prevalence Rate below 1/10000 at the national level. However, the National Health Policy 2017 (NHP), which will guide the health policy direction of the country over the next decade or so, still has elimination of Leprosy as a national level target. It is highly unlikely that India achieves elimination...

-TheWire.in Eleven BJP-ruled states, three in which it is a coalition partner and three non-BJP states do not serve eggs despite the National Institute of Nutrition making it compulsory under the mid-day meal scheme. New Delhi: While eggs have been established to be an excellent source of protein and all essential nutrients, except vitamin C, for young children, the latest “egg map” – which illustrates how many eggs are distributed per...

-Livemint.com Soaring sales of herbicide tolerant, genetically modified cotton seeds put farmers across states at risk New Delhi: Regulatory failure has led to a surge in sales of unapproved herbicide tolerant (HT) genetically modified (GM) cotton seed packets in the ongoing Kharif planting season, putting thousands of farmers at risk across states such as Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. The regulatory failure has been precipitated by the fact that the genetic engineering...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Three fathers who lost a child each to alleged medical negligence and a patients' rights group have asked the Union health ministry to establish new mechanisms to address complaints of negligence. The existing institutional mechanisms to protect patients has failed and broken down, their letter to minister J.P. Nadda and health officials on Saturday said. The parents and the rights group, the All India Drug Action Network, have sought...