Regulations covering public health should override personal rights and the country cannot wait any more for a good public health law. The health care industry, including institutions of medical education, hospitals and pharmaceutical businesses, have grown into behemoths that can do considerable harm in the absence of independent and effective regulatory systems. While there are no success stories in the regulation of any kind of industry in India, I will focus...

The goal of universal health care requires an overhaul of the public health system, medical education and regulatory mechanisms. At long last, public health is on the agenda of the country’s policy makers. The Prime Minister’s Republic Day speech mentioned that the Twelfth Plan would focus on health just as the Eleventh Plan had focussed on education. But the manner in which the education sector has been messed with does not...

Contrary to the claims of the UIDAI, fingerprints are a highly inappropriate tool to uniquely identify individuals. Case 1: “There are nine checks on visa nationals arriving into the U.K. [United Kingdom]. The fingerprint matching check is the most recent. It is the least reliable. It is the least effective in terms of delivering against our requirements….” So stated Brodie Clark, the former head of the United Kingdom Border Force, to a...

The State finds a handy tool in a colonial law to quell dissent Wrong Arm Of The Law   Why ‘sedition’ rings hollow in India 2012 The law Section 124(A) of the Indian Penal Code, 1870; non-bailable offence The definition Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government...

-The Telegraph Teachers who don’t believe in sparing the rod, beware. If an amendment to an existing act on juvenile justice is passed, corporal punishment will for the first time become a standalone provision in the law under which teachers found guilty could be jailed for up to seven years, depending on the nature of injury. As of now there is no definition of corporal punishment except for a provision under the Right...