India’s new vaccination policy stresses increased domestic research and surveillance on local diseases; but has drawn criticism for endorsing new vaccines in the national immunisation programme without ascertaining need. The April 2011 policy, made public by India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in August, provides guidelines for vaccine research and development; strengthening the evidence base for new vaccine introduction and regulation and patent issues. It highlights lack of indigenous baseline surveillance...
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Allocation for health & family welfare ministry up by 20% to Rs 26,760 crore: Shipping Minister G K Vasan
-PTI CHENNAI: The Government has increased the allocation for Health and Family Welfare Ministry by 20 per cent to Rs 26,760 crore in 2011-12, Union Shipping Minister G K Vasan said here today. "To address the overall healthcare requirements of the country, the allocation for Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has been increased by 20 per cent from Rs 22,300 crore in 2010-11 to Rs 26,760 crore in 2011-12," he said,...
More »Then There Were Three by Anuradha Raman
Poor, pregnant with third child? Even the state’s giving up on you. Why Less For More * The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare wants to target poor, pregnant women with more than two children, take away entitlements and benefits * Critics say the two-child norm will severely restrict the number of beneficiaries of the Janani Suraksha Yojana scheme. The scheme, launched in 2005, has been a great success. *...
More »Food Security: Messy Jam, But Here’s a Map by Ashok Gulati
Ensuring food security to all is one of India’s top policy agendas today. Given a large mass of poverty in the country, it is not surprising and no one would perhaps disagree with the need to achieve this as soon as possible. But the varied policy instruments that can be used towards achieving this goal draw sharp differences among the stakeholders. What is food security? The World Food Summit of 1996...
More »Disturbing trend by TK Rakalakshmi
A recent study finds that selective abortion of girls, especially for pregnancies after a firstborn girl, has increased substantially in India. CENSUS 2011, which brought out several positive features with regard to education, literacy and fertility rates, also confirmed the disturbing trend that had been reported for the first time in the 1991 Census – the increasing gap between the figures for male and female children in the 0-6 age...
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