-Economic and Political Weekly The draft National Health Policy 2015 is an improvement over its predecessors--the policies of 1984 and 2002. However, it also reveals several gaps, inconsistencies and blind spots which tend to dilute otherwise constructive proposals. The purpose of this article is to open up the draft to further public debate and comment. Forum for Medical Ethics Society (fmesmumbai@gmail.com) is a voluntary, non-profit organisation registered in Mumbai. The society was...

Two recent reports show that this social sector scheme has had a causal impact in improving lives, especially for women and children Fourteen million people escaped falling into poverty under the world’s largest anti-poverty programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). In 10 years of its existence, the scheme reduced poverty by 32 per cent. Recent data also shows that more women are drawing cash incomes, more children...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India has set itself a challenging target to reduce maternal mortality rate to 70 per 1000 live births, and for neonatal and under-five to 12 and 25 per 1,000 births respectively under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved over the next 15 years. The consensus over the new targets was achieved within the government in a recent meeting of the health ministry and other...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India has eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus. It has been reduced to less than one case per 1000 live births across the country, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has validated adding India to the list of countries that have successfully battled the disease. "This is a huge achievement for India which until a few decades ago reported 150,000 to 200,000 neonatal tetanus cases annually," WHO regional...

-The Indian Express The objective of the DNA Profiling Bill, 2015, is to establish a regulatory framework for DNA testing, and setting standards and guidelines for laboratories doing these tests. The proposed Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2015, could not be finalised in time to be introduced in Parliament’s Monsoon Session. After that, owing to the intense debate generated by the Bill in the past few weeks, the government extended the deadline...