-PTI The Supreme Court today slammed the Centre for "fooling" people and not banning the manual scavenging despite its repeated promises that it would amend the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act to eliminate the practice. "We don’t want this type of vague affidavit. This shows you (Centre) are not serious. You are saying the same thing for the last six months. You are fooling the people...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Centre for its callousness in not enacting a law to ban manual scavenging despite giving repeated assurances that it would soon amend the relevant Act. Earlier, Additional Solicitor General Harin Raval told a Bench of Justices H.L. Dattu and C.K. Prasad that the Cabinet note was ready for bringing amendments to the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition)...

-The Indian Express In Raipur hospitals, a joke doing the rounds these days is: “Soon, someone will file an RTI to know the number of uteruses left in Chhattisgarh.” What has prompted it is, however, no joke. If a series of media reports in the state is to be believed, the uteruses of thousands of women have been removed in unnecessary operations. These reports talk of doctors cheating BPL families by encouraging...

Regulations covering public health should override personal rights and the country cannot wait any more for a good public health law. The health care industry, including institutions of medical education, hospitals and pharmaceutical businesses, have grown into behemoths that can do considerable harm in the absence of independent and effective regulatory systems. While there are no success stories in the regulation of any kind of industry in India, I will focus...

-The United Nations 20 June 2012 – World leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other groups have come together in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to take part in the UN Sustainable Development Conference (Rio+20).   In our Seven Issues, Seven Experts series, UN officials tell us more about the key issues being discussed at the conference and how we can contribute to make our...