The success of the institution of Lokpal will depend on limiting its scope to the very top of the hierarchy. That will make it manageable and lead to accountability down the line. The drafting of the Lokpal bill is back in the news after the round of Assembly elections. The co-chairperson of the high-power committee involved in the drafting has said that progress is slow and that the June 30 deadline...

After a government report confirmed major ethical violations in trials of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccines on Indian schoolgirls, senior doctors are calling for transparency in clinical trials conducted under private-public partnerships. The report is yet to be placed in the public domain, but its contents were revealed early May by senior doctors who assisted in its preparation, sparking outrage among public health advocates and women’s rights groups. HPV is an umbrella...

Vaccine-related deaths have shown an increase in the country since 2008, according to the information provided by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in response to an application filed under the Right to Information Act, 2005. The total number of deaths reported due to adverse effects from immunisation (AEFI) from 2001 to 2007 was only 136, whereas it went up to 355 in the following three years. The information has come...

-The Business Standard   Privacy issues are coming into focus as a result of a variety of government initiatives. The Aadhar programme, for issuing unique identity numbers, raises obvious questions of privacy as personal data are compiled in a central database. Then there is the proposed National Grid, designed as a network of 21 available databases across government and private agencies, and meant to help flag potential terrorist threats. On top...

The steadily rising rate of economic growth in India has recently been around 8 percent per year (it is expected to be 9 percent this year), and there is much speculation about whether and when India may catch up with and surpass China’s over 10 percent growth rate. Despite the evident excitement that this subject seems to cause in India and abroad, it is surely rather silly to be obsessed...