-The Hindu In a major boost to the country’s private vaccine manufacturing pharmaceutical companies, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that India’s national regulatory authority — Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) — and its affiliated institutions meet the prescribed international standards. India is a major vaccine producer with 12 major vaccine manufacturing facilities. These vaccines are used for the national and international market, reaching nearly 150 countries. Every second child...

-The Times of India The Right to Education Act (RTE) mandates that every child has the fundamental right to free and compulsory elementary education in India. March 31, 2013, is the deadline set for full implementation of the Act. However, several challenges need to be overcome, especially to provide education for children in areas of conflict.  In the Indian context, three regions experience varying degrees of conflict - Maoist-affected areas, Jammu and...

-The Hindu The trouble with ageing is that it is inevitable. The truth about ageing in India is that we have not yet built an adequate knowledge base to respond to its multifarious challenges. So says the United Nations Population Fund in its recently released Report on the Status of Elderly in Select States of India. The focus of the study is on the seven States where the aged population is...

Should they be targeted? Should they go to individuals or households? Are conditionalities necessary? Without a full consideration of these issues, cash transfers will remain an expensive gamble Having worked on cash transfers for over 25 years, and being an economist, I find recent criticisms of the idea shrill and ill-informed. Only a right-wing ideologue would call them a panacea or a cure-all. They would merely be a vast improvement on...

-The Telegraph A children’s vaccine against a stomach infection has triggered controversy with some doctors claiming there is not enough data to show it is effective in India and accusing a leading drug company of using a misleading advertisement to promote the vaccine. GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (GSK) has stopped the advertisement for the vaccine intended to protect children from potentially life-threatening rotavirus infections after the advertising industry’s self-regulating body upheld a doctor’s complaint...