-The Indian Express Mumbai: To prevent humiliation and trauma that victims of sexual assault often face during their medical examination, the Maharashtra government has issued a Government Resolution (GR) doing away with archaic and irrelevant practices, including the 'finger test'. The GR states that doctors, paramedics and medical officers of the state health department would have to adhere to a new manual that details the manner in which the medical examination should...

-The Hindu In the eye of the storm for funding corporate warehousing projects on terms far softer than those offered to poor farmers, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is now blaming the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the transgressions. Following a story in The Hindu, (‘As farmers suffer, NABARD offers soft loans to corporates, ' December 10, 2012), NABARD came under...

-The Hindu There are now as many as 9,000 Indian medical students in China As the costs of a medical education in India continue to rise, an increasing number of students are heading to foreign shores, with China, in particular, emerging as a favoured destination. A six year-education at an approved Chinese medical university, consultants say, can cost Rs. 25 lakh, including one-year internship and annual travel to India, although costs vary at...

-The Hindu The government has reiterated that it will implement the National Rural Livelihoods MISsion (NRLM) in a phased manner to ensure targeted and time-bound delivery of results. Recently, in a reply to a question posed in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Rural Development Pradeep Jain had said that it was the NRLM's mandate to guarantee that at least one member from each identified rural poor household, preferably a woman,...

-The Hindu India's hard won gains in achieving food security are in danger of being undermined by a clause in the National Food Security Bill that encourages States to adopt cash transfers in lieu of food entitlements under the Public Distribution System (PDS). Supporting this view, a recent report by the ComMISsion for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) concluded that the provision of food subsidies in the form of cash would...