-The Telegraph New Delhi: After two decades of practising gynaecology, Arun Gadre decided to turn whistleblower and seek out others like him who could articulate what he says are disturbing practices in India's healthcare system that hurt patients. Gadre, while running a private clinic in Lasalgaon in western Maharashtra, had seen women prescribed hysterectomies without justification, women coaxed into opting for Caesarean sections when normal deliveries may have been possible, patients prescribed...

-IPS News NEW DELHI: Despite being one of the world's fastest expanding economies, projected to clock seven-percent GDP growth in 2017, India - a nation of 1.2 billion - is trailing behind on many vital social development indices while also hosting one-fourth of the world's poor. While the United Nations prepares to wrap up a decade-and-a-half of poverty alleviation efforts, framed through the lens of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), by the...

-TheHansIndia.com Poya Devi, 22, is happy that the weight of her child has been steadily increasing. Her infant has received immunisation and, since last June, Poya has been availing services of the Indiramma Amurutha Hastham (IAH) scheme in her village of Urumulu, which lies 30 kilometres away from Araku. Poya was registered at the village's anganwadi as soon as she got pregnant and was later sent to a hospital for institutional delivery...

-Down to Earth Draft national health policy which proposes making health a fundamental right also envisages increased role of community in planning and implementing health services The Union health ministry has released the draft of the new health policy, which proposes a National Health Right Act. If implemented, the law may prove to be a milestone for health services in the country. The ministry has given the public time till February 28 to...

-Livemint.com Some 50,000 women in India died during childbirth and from Pregnancy-related complications in 2013, according to estimates by United Nations agencies Melbourne/Mumbai: Sita Devi was in labour when her family paid the day's first bribe. The wife of Shivvaran Pal, a subsistence farmer whom she'd married at 15, Sita worked on their land and earned a monthly wage of Rs.1,000, about $16, cooking school lunches. By 23, she had three daughters...