The National Agro Foundation is on a mission to improve yield and income, especially for small farmers. Anyone planning to improve the lot of farmers in the country would do well to begin with these wise words: “Fallowness is in one's mind and not in the soil.” This was constantly uttered by C. Subramaniam, the architect of India's agricultural policies that led to the Green Revolution. While his policies and high-yielding varieties...

For smooth implementation of the ‘cancer cervix vaccination programme' in Khammam district; Panel report pointed to casual approach, says Brinda 23,000 girls in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat were vaccinated ‘Ambivalent sentences in the consent form amount to indirect coercion' The Andhra Pradesh government had issued an order for the smooth implementation of the ‘cancer cervix vaccination programme' in Khammam district. It had ordered all educational institutions to support the efforts of the Health...

‘Project proposal carried out as research on human participants' Nature and objectives of these projects makes it evident that they are in fact clinical trials ‘They have administered an intervention which is not part of a prescribed prevention' The final report of the committee appointed by the Centre to enquire into alleged irregularities in the conduct of studies using Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine has found enough evidence to suggest that there were...

The government may approve acquisitions of local drugmakers by global firms on a case-by-case basis on certain conditions to ensure availability of medicines at affordable prices, despite calls for restrictions on such deals in the wake of a spate of takeovers in the last three years. Multinationals may have to move buyout proposals through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), allowing the government to understand the firm's rationale for buying a...

Leprosy has officially been eliminated in India, yet 130,000 new cases are diagnosed every year. Richard Cookson and Seyi Rhodes report on the plight of the patients shunned by society Narsappa was just 10 years old when he was told he had leprosy, but the news changed the course of his life forever. People in his Indian village immediately began to shun him and told his parents that he had to...