-TheWire.in Conditionalities related to utilising health services do not make any sense in the absence of a service guarantee, and only serve to blame the victims and not the system for its failures. Nearly six months after the prime minister announced maternity benefits of Rs 6,000 to pregnant and lactating mothers, the cabinet yesterday approved the implementation of the maternity benefits programme (MBP) – a scheme that will likely exclude a large...

-Business Standard Alleges while govt's providing incentives to corporate houses, cos are cutting jobs for more profit Chennai: The New Democratic Labour Front (NDLF) IT Employees Wing, a TRADE UNION, is planning to conduct a protest march next week against what it calls an unjustified dismissal of employees by IT firms. It is looking to represent around 20 employees who have been dismissed from various IT firms with the Tamil Nadu labour...

-The Hindu The core issues are affordable access to medicines and their rational prescription and use The Medical Council of India (MCI) issued a circular on April 21 drawing attention to clause 1.5 of its regulations regarding the professional conduct of doctors: “Every physician should prescribe drugs with generic names legibly and preferably in capital letters and he/she shall ensure that there is a rational prescription of drugs.” Further, the circular said,...

-Frontline Cattle traders see a nexus between cow vigilantes and animal rights organisations in Delhi, where vigilantes unleashed violence in April. In the past year, 40,000 animals seized by them were not returned to the owners, and traders believe that they were sold. A PLANNED and brutal assault on cattle traders in Kalkaji in Delhi on April 22 by a mob of gau rakshaks (cow protectors) has brought to the fore...

-Scroll.in Those who buy and sell milch cows and oxen for farm work say cow vigilantes have made it impossible for them to conduct their business. Cow vigilantism has been portrayed as a blowback against the Muslim community’s insistence on consuming beef, unmindful of the fact that slaughtering cows hurts Hindus who worship the animal. This depiction has framed the cow as an incendiary issue between Hindus and Muslims, an irreconcilable...