The medicine price regulator, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), has found a price fixing mechanism suggested by its parent ministry, chemicals and fertilisers, has failed to meaningfully lower the prices of key cancer medicines. A group of ministers (GoM) headed by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is expected to meet soon to finalise a pricing policy on drugs. The NPPA study findings may compel the ministry to seek other effective ways of...

RTI activists in Haryana have decided to protest against the appointment of bureaucrats as state information commissioners (SIC) directly after their superannuation "without transparency". They have also planned to move the Punjab and Haryana high court against the appointment of outgoing chief secretary, Urvashi Gulati as the SIC. Urvashi Gulati's husband Naresh Gulati is chief state information commissioner while her elder sister, Meenaxi Anand Chaudhry had also been state information...

-The Times of India It was UPA 1's winning mantra. But the Rs 33,000 crore a year rural job guarantee scheme may be floundering with the government admitting the flagship programme suffers from delayed payments, poor awareness, lack of durable assets, faulty job cards and muster rolls. The finance ministry has echoed some of the major criticisms of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act listing endemic "lack of awareness about...

-The Times of India   Health services in the state are likely to get a new fillip with 388 regular doctors being appointed and Posted in rural parts of the state. Appointment letters were handed over to the doctors by chief minister Arjun Munda at a function organized by state health department and Jharkhand Rural Health Mission (JRHMS) at the Reproductive and Child Health Centre, Namkum on Thursday. Handing over the appointment letters...

-The Hindustan Times Home minister RR Patil on Friday told the Legislative Council that the state was planning a special tribal battalion of the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) to tackle the naxals in the state. He added that many young police officers were hesitant to work in the tribal areas and there was a need to raise a force comprising those who knew the terrain and belonged to the area. “We...