-The Times of India The government is all set to crack the whip on India's shameful pharma-doctor nexus. The National Development Council (NDC), led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will meet on December 27 to discuss bringing a legislation requiring drug companies to mandatorily disclose payments made to doctors for research, consulting, lectures, travel and entertainment. Doctors involved in ghost writing to promote pharma products will also be disqualified. The official NDC document...

-The Times of India High blood pressure (BP) has become the world's deadliest disease-causing risk factor. But for Indians, indoor air pollution (IAP) — emanating from chulhas burning wood, coal and animal dung as fuel — has been found to be a bigger health hazard for Indians. The first-ever estimates of the contribution of different risk factors to the global burden of disease between 1990 and 2010 has found that household air pollution...

-The Business Standard Why the hue and cry over Walmart? Many of India Inc's big ones are no strangers to lobbying in the US  There is a very fine line that separates lobbying from bribery, and there are diverse opinions on what kind of influential pressure on lawmakers qualifies as acceptable, and what doesn't. Quite clearly, bribery is illegal and unacceptable, there is nothing wrong in lobbying per se -- at least...

-The Indian Express Lamenting the virtual collapse of public health system in major parts of the country, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh today said rural families are falling into debt trap due to expensive private health sector. In large parts of the country, particularly in central and eastern India and in tribal belts, he said public health system is "not abysmal but has collapsed". "Indebtedness caused by private health sector is one of the...

-The Economic Times The Union Cabinet has okayed a new price-control formula for pharmaceuticals, which seeks to cap prices at the arithmetic average of all drugs with more than 1% market share in any therapeutic segment that is to be brought under price control. Given that the existing system of fixing prices of select drugs is on the basis of costs, which is rigid, intrusive and prone to manipulation as well,...