Let Aruna die? No, with her alive, there’s more power, media attention. Hence, the politics of mercy in medicine. Lucknow airport. Late ’90s. Khushwant Singh and I are waiting for our flights, we talk about Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee mentioning my book Once Was Bombay in a speech on collapsing cities. He suddenly asks, “You wrote that book on the woman who neither lives nor dies, you still see her?” I...

Toxicity in Ferozepur district's groundwater is causing crippling disorders among children in several villages Sutlej water gets polluted by effluents and seeps into groundwater People in border areas upset at official apathy The toxicity of the groundwater in over four dozen villages in the border areas of Ferozepur district of Punjab has risen to such alarming levels that an increasing number of children now requires wheelchairs more than toys, as they fall victim...

Describing female foeticide as a “disgrace” to society, President Pratibha Patil has called upon the medical fraternity to ensure that diagnostic tests are not misused for pre-natal gender determination. “We have laws and legal provisions that specially prohibit medical practitioners from disclosing the gender of the foetus. It is not only illegal, but it is socially immoral and detrimental to society. It is very important that all medical facilities, doctors and...

Illegality in India today touches almost every economic activity. It is both systemic and systematic. The Indian ruling class faced its severest crisis of credibility in 2010. Its past caught up with it and skeletons and scams were spilling out of its closets. The scams have a symbiotic relationship with the black economy. The number of scams is growing and so is the size of the black economy, which has reached...

A medical degree in three-and-a-half years could soon become a reality. The Bachelor of Rural Medicine and Surgery (BRMS), which had earlier faced stiff opposition, finally got the go-ahead on Thursday. The Union health ministry, which convened a meeting of state health ministers in Hyderabad, said "the introduction of BRMS courses was endorsed in the meeting unanimously". This means India's rural areas, which have so far been neglected by doctors,...