-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Acknowledging that women are a disadvantaged section despite comprising nearly half of the population of the country, the Centre is considering lowering income tax for single women, introducing Aadhaar-linked health cards for free basic health check-ups for women and cashless medical service for those who are pregnant. A national policy for women, framed by a group of ministers headed by external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, is...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The World Health Organisation has announced a plan to approve generic versions of two expensive bio-therapeutic anti-cancer molecules in an effort to make them available to low and middle-income countries. It said it would invite manufacturers to submit applications for pre-qualification of biologically similar versions of rituximab, used to treat chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and trastuzumab, used to treat breast cancer. The pre-qualification process is a mechanism...

-TheWire.in The government’s premier policy-formulating agency recently recommended measures to deregulate the pharmaceutical sector and make essential medicines more expensive. New Delhi: Even as the prime minister repeatedly expresses his commitment to providing affordable medicines in the country, it appears that the NITI Aayog and the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) may be working in an opposing direction. Documents between October 2016 and April 2017 show the intention of various government arms to...

-The Indian Express In 2015, the BJP government of Chhattisgarh, represented by health minister Ajay Chandrakar, signed an MoU with PHFI to upgrade specialist doctors in Naxal-hit Bastar. SINCE last week, the top public health NGO Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) has been in the crosshairs of the NDA government, barred from accepting foreign funds. But not very long ago, it was the preferred partner of not just the UPA...

-The Indian Express Baigas in court against order issued by govt of undivided MP Achanakmar: “THAK GAYI (I am tired),” says Ranichand Baiga, 26. She was married at 15, and in a tribe where non-surgical contraceptives are still unheard of, has since had eight children. Two, she says, died of illness. On her arm, outside her one-room home in the core zone of the Achanakmar Tiger Reserve, is her youngest son, Surya,...