In the month of June this year, encephalitis related deaths in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district grabbed the headlines. Actually, most of the children, who were admitted or died at Shri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH), hailed from East Champaran, Vaishali, Sitamarhi and Samastipur apart from Muzaffarpur. Unfortunately, till recently official data on the number of cases and deaths related to Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) was unavailable for...

-TheWire.in Unless the State Government has a system to ensure that landowners sign tenancy agreements, the new Act may not bring in any noteworthy changes. On July 25, soon after coming to power with an absolute majority, the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party-led State Government passed the Andhra Pradesh Crop Cultivators Rights Act, 2019. The promises made to farmers by the YSRCP in the run up to the polls had elicited great hope...

-The Hindu Officials say CMs of all States asked to take appropriate action under the law against quacks “At present, 57.3% of personnel currently practising allopathic medicine do not have a medical qualification,” states the Union Health Ministry’s data, adding that this puts at risk rural patients who suffer because of an urban to rural doctor density ratio of 3.8:1, and India’s poor doctor-population ratio of 1:1456 as compared with the World...

-The Telegraph Rajasthan is the second state after Manipur to pass an anti-lynching law Sometimes the hard core of values exposes itself through fruity layers of palliative rhetoric. That happened in the Rajasthan assembly when the government passed the Rajasthan protection from lynching bill, 2019 and the Rajasthan prohibition of interference with the freedom of matrimonial alliances in the name of honour and tradition bill, 2019. That the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Opposition...

-The Times of India Manisha Verma, principal secretary, tribal development department, Maharashtra talks to Sugandha Indulkar about The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 and related issues, with today being World Tribal Day. * What’s the precise positioning of the tribal welfare departments at the Centre and states on FRA? This is a seminal legislation. The preamble to the Act itself states that it aims...