-The Business Standard   It appears a committee headed by Planning Commission member Arun Maira examining the case for continued unrestricted foreign direct investment (FDI) in the pharmaceutical industry has opted to oppose the move to change the present regime. The only concession it is willing to make to the health and commerce ministries’ demand that approval of such investment be routed through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board is to ask for...

The Planning Commission's laughable estimates of the ‘poverty line' follow from a mistake in method that it made 30 years ago and has clung to ever since. The affidavit that the Planning Commission recently submitted before the Supreme Court stating that a person is to be considered ‘poor' only if his or her monthly spending is below Rs.781 (Rs.26 a day) in the rural areas and Rs.965 (Rs.32 a day) in...

-The Hindu   Describing female foeticide as a grave challenge, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Wednesday said information, education and communication (IEC) could play a role in building a positive environment for valuing the girl child, particularly at the grassroots level. He said the Centre had decided to provide funds to States for setting up dedicated cells to monitor the implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic...

A blockade-choked Manipur could be facing an HIV epidemic because of condom shortage, forcing the AIDS Control Society to consider airlifting rubber to the state. The Sadar Hills District Demand Committee imposed an economic blockade along Imphal-Jiribam and Imphal-Dimapur highways on July 31 in support of the creation of Sadar Hills district. The United Naga Council imposed another blockade on August 21, to oppose inclusion of Naga villages when the Sadar Hills...

India accounts for 58 percent of those who practice open defecation across the globe. In its finding for the year 2008, UNICEF estimated that as many as 63.8 crore people, that is, 54 percent of the country's population, practice open defecation due to inadequate sanitation. On this ignominious list, Indonesia is a distant second with 5.7 crore people lacking toilet facilities, and it accounts for 5 percent of the hapless population which...