The Bill to regulate medical education and govern human resource in health is a highly diluted version of the original draft. Distortions in the area of Human Resource for Health (HRH) are the root cause of many of the ills facing the health sector in India. Among them is the shortage of qualified medical professionals. The estimated density of 19 health workers (qualified and unqualified) per 10,000 population is nearly 25...

India is all set to unveil a path-breaking test for diabetes that will save both money and blood. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is almost ready with a new digital finger-pricking blood sugar machine that will not require repeated use of testing strips. Significantly, it will cost less than Rs 2 per blood sample and require 1,000 times lesser blood than what glucose meters use now. Even better, it...

-The Hindu Once a Bill is tabled in Parliament after Cabinet nod, there can be no bar on disclosing the contents The Central Information Commission (CIC) has ruled that once a Bill has been tabled in Parliament, the Cabinet decision and file notings relating to it can be made public. Ordering the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) to produce the Cabinet note, papers and file notings relating to the Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority...

-Tehelka Justice Sujata Manohar on how the Biotechnology Bill is fundamentally flawed IN THE last few years, regulatory systems across the board have been undergoing an overhaul to fit the needs of a new era. Likewise, new laws are being chalked out to meet new needs, and several are receiving flak owing to the loopholes and regressive grounds on which these have been drafted. The relatively more recent one to regulate modern...

A narrow education is making engineers oblivious to the importance of human interaction and raising the cost of even simple tasks My time in South Asia has rewarded me with an enigma: why is engineering so expensive here? Why is it often many times more expensive than in Australia, my home? My search for answers led me to shanty towns on the fringes of mega-cities. We compared an award winning Indian factory...