The big newspapers are Indian, as much as they are ethnic or regional in character. Their choice of news reflects the upward mobility of middle class India. This report is based on a recently concluded survey of what newspapers covered over a two month period in late 2010. Our study took ten newspapers in five states: Hindustan Times (Delhi), Dainik Jagran (Delhi), Telegraph, Ananda Bazar Patrika, Deccan Chronicle, Dinathanti, the Hindu...

The Union health ministry registered only 107 cases of female feticide under Section 315 and 316 of IPC in 2010. This is an abysmally low figure in a country which scientists believe has seen over 10 million female lives lost to abortion and sex selection in the past two decades. A few years ago, an Indo-Canadian scientist had reported in the Lancet that pre-natal selection and selective abortion was causing a...

The Fukushima disaster has prompted calls to review legislation passed by the Indian parliament in August 2010 that capped compensation payable, in the event of a nuclear accident, at 320 million U.S. dollars. "Fukushima showed what the potential damage from an accident could be," M.V. Ramana, physicist and well-known commentator on nuclear energy safety issues, told IPS. "The economic damages [at Fukushima] must have certainly exceeded the compensation allowed in the nuclear...

This week could see far-reaching beneficial consequences for health care in India. But we need to ensure that the emerging paradigm shift does not miss out on what medical education can and should do to overcome the inadequacies. Recent events in our country have been full of sound and fury, which have disillusioned the public with their futility. But this week has the potential for promising developments in Indian medical education...

DEALS WITH MULTINATIONALS AND OTHER BIG AGRIBUSINESS COMPANIES A wide range of farmers’ organisations, Gandhian organisations, people’s movements and NGOs have united to oppose a series of disturbing agreements which the Rajasthan Government reached with various multinational and other agribusiness companies including Monsanto. These agreements, which greatly increase the control and influence of these companies over the agriculture sector in India’s biggest State (in terms of area), have proved so controversial...