For women, the NREGA would bring important social gains   Not being an expert on the subject and too lazy to read all the fine print, I do not know the exact allocations under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act this year. But I gather the money has been cut down, largely because the sums allocated last year were not fully used by most states. Maybe there were other considerations...

India, like other Asian countries, has focused its climate change adaptation strategies on rural and urban areas while neglecting the urban fringes, say experts. Peri-urban areas are characterised by haphazard, accelerated expansion and are farthest from basic urban services and infrastructure, according to United Nations-Habitat’s ‘The State of Asian Cities 2010-11’. By 2020, of the projected 4.2 billion urban population of the world, 2.2 billion will be living in Asia, many...

A new study looking at cancer mortality in 2010 in India found a high 71 per cent (3,95,400) deaths in people between 30 and 69 years. Cancer accounted for 8 per cent of the 2·5 million total male deaths and 12 per cent of the 1·6 million total female deaths in the same age group. The high mortality rate during the middle age is very different from the developed countries,...

-Economic and Political Weekly The compulsory licence for Nexavar is only the beginning of a new battle over drug prices. The grant of a compulsory licence (CL) to Natco Pharma, a relatively small Indian pharmaceutical company, to manufacture and sell the cancer drug sorafenib (Nexavar) has been rightly hailed as a major step forward for public health and the wider availability of life saving medicines.   The German pharmaceutical company Bayer holds the patent...

-The Times of India   In a bid to induce a fresh life into the ailing health services delivery system in Uttar Pradesh, the World Bank has signed a $152 million deal with the Central and UP governments. The funds will be used to finance the government's efforts to improve the efficiency, quality, and accountability of health services in the state. The project, called the Uttar Pradesh Health Systems Strengthening Project (UPHSSP) for...