Four infants aged below two years died and 17 children fell ill after they were administered an anti-measles and tetanus vaccine at Anganwadi centres in Damoh town, in Madhya Pradesh. Around 20 infants were administered the vaccine at two Anganwadi centres in Damoh on Friday afternoon. By Sunday afternoon, four of these infants were dead while the others had been admitted to a local hospital in a critical condition. Preliminary...

The poor health indices and health care in rural India have always been met with lofty ideals sans action; they demand urgent and radical solutions.  The recent proposal to introduce a new medical course, Bachelor of Rural Health Care, has been met with resistance from many sections of the medical fraternity. Its opponents argue that it will result in second-class health care for rural India and increase the rural-urban divide....

Women’s groups have demanded a comprehensive legislation to address rape and sexual assault. A delegation that met Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily earlier this week, said there was a need to incorporate various substantive and procedural sections in the Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and the Indian Evidence Act to deal with child sexual assault and sexual assault against women. Archaic definition In a memorandum to the Minister, the...

A medical degree in 3-1/2 years? This could soon be a reality with the health ministry and Medical Council of India (MCI) planning a shorter medical degree for rural students who would exclusively serve the rural populace. The hinterland, where few doctors want to serve, could soon have a dedicated corps of medical practitioners drawn from among students raised in rural areas. After incentives failed to lure doctors to practise...

She was a minor; her alleged assaulter a man with clout. The police initially turned her away; while a decade later, her case is still on in courts. And while Ruchika Girhotra’s tragic story may have got the nation’s and government’s ear, no one remembers the then 13-year-old Dalit girl who was allegedly gangraped on the night of the Dhuleti festival, a day after Holi, in a Vadodara village by...