-The Telegraph New Delhi: An industry body and medical experts have decried a government proposal to replace gelatin with cellulose to encapsulate drugs, calling it an impractical idea that needlessly injects the vegetarian-non-vegetarian debate into medicines. The Punjab Haryana Delhi (PHD) Chamber of Commerce and Industry today said gelatin had been used for over a century and made up 95 per cent of capsule formulations worldwide, and cautioned that the proposal to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Twenty-three bridges and tunnels on national highways (NHs) are over 100 years old, of which 17 require rehabilitation or major maintenance. As many as 123 other bridges in the country require immediate attention and 6,000 are structurally "distressed". These are some of the findings of a analysis conducted by the Union road transport and highways ministry under its Indian Bridge Management System (IBMS) project, India's first-ever...

-Business Standard/ IndiaSpend Seven of the nine 'high-focus' states report underspending on Healthcare Nine of India’s poorest states–home to 581 million or 48% of India’s population–account for 70% of the country’s infant deaths, 75% of under-five deaths and 62% of maternal deaths, but do not spend even the money they have set aside for Healthcare, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of 2017 Reserve Bank of India data on state budgets. The data also...

-The Indian Express For villages such as Pidia and Gampur who are caught between government orders and Maoist diktats, “consent” means little. In Pidia, of 485 ration cards, there are 25 that are Aadhaar-seeded. In Gampur, the number is 17 of 283. Gangaloor: For at least two months, Mahendra Hemla has been having the same conversation with the villagers. They come, the entire village of Pipdia almost at once, to his small...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's drug pricing rules allow companies to inflate the maximum retail prices of medicines, including life-saving drugs, costing patients thousands of additional rupees while offering slices of the profits to stockists, chemists, and hospitals. Quotations received by hospitals from drug companies' representatives offering discounts on maximum retail prices (MRPs) of medicines provide what some doctors and patients' rights advocates say is fresh evidence for excessive profiteering in India's...