-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre's regulatory body for traditional medicine has decided to offer a two-year postgraduate diploma course in ayurveda to doctors of modern medicine, drawing criticism from some medical professionals. The course will help doctors with degrees such as MBBS and MD to learn the basic principles of ayurveda, a senior official with the Central Council for Indian Medicine said. "We believe there is interest in ayurveda, mainly from doctors...

-Down to Earth Severe dry spells in Indian forests have hit the livelihood of more than 100 million people. But India simply does not acknowledge this drought For more than five months, residents of Jabarra village have been foraging the forests for minor forest produce (MFP). The forest in Chhattisgarh’s Dhamtari district is abundant with more than 200 types of forest produce and the district is known as Asia’s biggest trading...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Several parents in northern India seeking treatment for children with congenital heart disorders appear to favour boys over girls, a team of cardiologists reported today, corroborating earlier findings that gender bias may be denying even life-saving health care to girls. The cardiologists at the Dayanand Medical College and Hospital in Ludhiana have said that even the promise of free treatment has not eroded the underlying gender bias among...

-The Hindu It is critical that the HPS is finalised after considering possible distortions in medical insurance schemes and looking at models that have worked. The Health Protection Scheme (HPS) that was announced in the Union Budget 2016 is more generous than the earlier scheme, the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY). Poor households now get an annual health cover of Rs.1 lakh; the limit under RSBY was Rs.30,000. In principle, the HPS...

-Hindustan Times India has the best and the worst medical education in the world, according to a review of the world’s largest database of peer-reviewed literature. Four medical colleges in India are among the top 10 global institutions that published the most research between 2004 and 2014, while around 60% of the country’s 579 medical institutions have published no research in a decade. Only 25 (4.3%) institutions published more than 100 papers a...