-Livemint.com With a slew of development targets getting pushed back to at least 2030, what visions and goals are realistic? The year 2020 was bleak. And while the calendar changes, things may not change all that much until the public health benefits of a mass vaccination campaign kicks in. Meanwhile, it is important to take stock of where India’s development dreams stand and where the country can go from here. Many visions and...

-The Telegraph For a country with more free-roaming dogs than the entire population of Australia, India fares poorly in tackling rabies Arnav, the seven-year-old son of a Mumbai police constable, suffered serious bites on his face and body by a rabid dog in 2018. He was taken to four different hospitals before being properly diagnosed; he passed away shortly after. His case is just one among the 20,000 annual canine-origin human rabies...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's apex animal welfare agency has proclaimed that allowing stray animals such as cats, dogs, monkeys and cattle to roam the streets amounts to cruelty and told the states to create animal shelters, among other steps, or face legal action. The Animal Welfare Board of India, a unit of the Union environment ministry, has sent an advisory to the states seeking action by local municipal authorities to provide...

-Scroll.in Meanwhile, 55% of all Indians do not go to public hospitals to seek treatment. In 2017, India saw much uproar over the state of health facilities and medical services in the country. Rumours about vaccine safety dogged immunisation campaigns in some states, child deaths in government hospitals have raised questions about the state of public health facilities across the country, and large corporate hospitals have come under the scanner for...

-The Times of India Bijnor: In order to "speed up" the vaccination drive, UP health department officials in a minority-dominated block of Bijnor have told people that if they do not get their kids vaccinated, they will not get ration under the government scheme. According to a senior health official, the step was taken to "put pressure" on people opposing the vaccination programme. He also told TOI that the department has successfully...