Questionable drug trials on mentally challenged persons by doctors in Indore emphasise the need for strict enforcement of medical ethics. IN what appears to be a page out of Robin Cook's medical thriller, government and private doctors in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, reportedly carried out clinical trials of various medicines on some 233 patients who had gone to them seeking psychiatric treatment. As in Cook's famous book Coma, in which a medical...

-The Hindu   At a time when Karnataka is in the news for increase in the number of malnourished children, the Jana Arogya Andolana Karnataka (JAAK), an NGO working in the field of health, has come out with a portal on hunger The portal, www.republicofhunger.org, is aimed at conveying to people the depth of the problem and will serve as a watchdog, and examine the claims of the State Government regarding the issue...

-Tehelka   Victims will be able to record testimonies without being physically present in Delhi district courts Recounting the horrors of being sexually assaulted is an ordeal for victims particularly in court with the defence shooting off insensitive questions amid strangers. To ensure that victims give testimonies without fear or duress, the Delhi’s Department of Law, Justice & Legislative Affairs will soon install video conferencing facilities in courts. For the first time in...

What was our immediate response to further decline in the child sex ratio in India? Within days of the provisional 2011 Census results (March-April 2011), the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare reconstituted the Central Supervisory Board for the Pre-conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex selection) Act 1994 , which had not met for 3 years, and on November 30, 2011 the Ministry of Women and Child Development...

-The Hindu   The second “national convention on children's right to food” concluded here on Sunday with a call to link anti-malnutrition strategies to inflationary indices. The three-day convention in which about 1,000 delegates from 21 States participated, adopted a 25-point “charter” on combating malnutrition. Shanta Sinha, chairperson of the National Commission for the Protection of child rights (NCPCR), stressed on focussing on the disadvantaged sections in the fight against malnutrition. Blaming the Central and...