-PTI   An elderly resident of Indore has alleged that her husband died in 2010 following a drug trial a government doctor conducted on him without his consent. The doctor in question, Salil Bhargava, denied that he was involved in any “illegal or unethical” drug trials. “We have carried out all the drug trials after getting due consent from the patients for which they were duly insured. We have all records with us in...

Muslims, SCs, STs reflect better social indices, closer to national averages Early in the morning, Mohammad Nadeem, a 25-year-old ‘pakka adati’, big wholesaler, at one of Muzaffarnagar’s fruit and vegetable mandis, briskly sets about selling carrots and oranges. As he expertly sifts through sacks of fresh produce, it’s difficult to picture him hawking peanuts by the roadside. But for five years in this bustling western Uttar Pradesh mandi, Nadeem’s store...

Soon, radiologists can work in only two ultrasound facilities at the maximum, and that too within a single district. In a landmark decision to save the girl child, the Union health ministry in the Central Supervisory Board (CSB) meeting of the Pre-conception & Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994, chaired by health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad cleared the proposal. The CSB also passed the recommendation that radiologists will have to clearly specify working...

Did you think sex-selection was more prevalent in urban homes? Think Again. An analysis of Census 2011 by the Union health ministry on the eve of the crucial meeting of the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act's (PC & PNDT Act) Central Supervisory Board (CSB) has shown that the hideous crime against a girl child has become more prevalent among families in rural India. Consider Delhi, where sex selection was common among...

The government is not keen to change the classification of victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy in its curative petition before the Supreme Court and allow higher compensation for thousands or admit to a higher number of fatalities, although it is ready to consider doubling the relief demanded for the small number it currently accepts as dead and those permanently scarred due to the lethal gas leak. The government seems to...