Infant deaths resulting from a recent clinical trial in India have led to a media outcry. But few have considered how explosive these revelations actually are, or the problematic use and application of the Right to Information Act. When India’s Right to Information Act came into force in 2005, the legislation’s text acknowledged the conflict that could arise from revealing certain information, pointing out that there was a need to ‘harmonise’...

Japanese encephalitis — a form of brain fever — has hit the state capital and its neighbouring areas. At least 10-12 cases of the disease are being reported at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) daily over the past few days. Dr Nigam Prakash Narayan, a senior doctor at the paediatrics ward of the hospital, said: “About 250 patients of encephalitis have been admitted to the hospital so far. Of them,...

-The Times of India   The public health department has sought chief minister Prithviraj Chavan's intervention to introduce stringent clauses against medicos who complete their education from state-run or civic hospitals but refuse to serve the mandatory one-year rural stint.  According to an official, the government was considering not issuing medical registration certificates--which is mandatory for higher studies, pursuing job in any hospital or even for starting a dispensary of their own-to students...

As a national debate rages over the Indian poverty line, in the heart of Bandra, one of Mumbai’s richest suburbs, in a shanty with barely enough standing space for two adults, three-year-old Priya Doiphode, clad in a red tee shirt, lies listless on a string bed. Priya is one of the 83,243 children in Mumbai who are malnourished, according to government data, a statistic that makes Mumbai the most malnourished...

-IANS   Soni Sori, the tribal teacher who was held in Delhi last week on charges of being a Maoist conduit and is hospitalised here with head and back injuries, Wednesday said Chhattisgarh Police were treating her like a criminal. "They (police) are treating me like a hardcore criminal. They had put a chain on my legs... I oppose such moves by police," Sori told some mediamen at a government hospital here...