-The Hindu Doctors’ objections to prescribing medicines by generic names fly in the face of a recent report on substandard drugs In a surprise move on April 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his government will soon make it mandatory for doctors to prescribe medicines by generic names. The decision was to ensure drug prices remain affordable and patients get a wider bouquet of options instead of being forced to...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has asked its state and local units to raise funds from member doctors to organise conferences and functions instead of seeking sponsorship. According to IMA office-bearers, the decision was taken at a meeting on Wednesday in view of allegations about pharmaceutical companies and the device industry shaping the content and style of medical conferences. "If doctors want to meet at a...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Regulatory efforts to get doctors in India to prescribe medicines only through their generic names, initiated about 15 years ago, will need to overcome legal challenges and resistance from sections of doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, experts said. Senior pharmacologists and industry analysts have also said it will be misleading to presume that prescriptions with generic names will automatically translate into lower medicine bills for patients as studies...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A health consortium today questioned a decision by Delhi High Court earlier this week to quash the Centre's ban on 344 cocktails of two or more medicines and urged doctors across the country to stop prescribing them. The Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA), the Indian section of the global People's Health Movement, said it was shocked at the judgment because there was "no scientific rationale" for the continued use...

-Frontline.in In the latest Global Hunger Index, India is bracketed in the category of countries where hunger levels are “serious”. But the policy responses on hunger and malnutrition in the country have been inadequate and faulty. In the second week of October, a few media reports in India highlighted significant data pertaining to global hunger. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) had released its Global Hunger Index (GHI), rating 118...