The Union health ministry today banned the manufacture and sale of a drug calLED letrozole to treat infertility in women, four years after its own drug regulators had waived safety studies and relaxed rules to approve the medicine. In a statement notifying the ban, the ministry said the drug “is likely to involve risk to human beings and safer alternatives are available”. The drug has been used to treat breast cancer in...

-The Hindu    Will not just help provide livelihood, but also protect land The Congress-LED government in Rajasthan has taken up development of pasture land in tribal-dominated Udaipur region under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) by involving a voluntary organisation in the work. The project has been launched in Chhali and Amleta villages of Udaipur district. Inaugurating the project at the two remote villages this past weekend, State Rural Development...

With the focus now on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, scheduLED for early next year, the Congress LED-UPA government has once again displayed its keenness to position itself with the agitating farmers by trying to ensure the passage of the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill during the winter session of Parliament. Assuming that the Parliamentary Standing Committee attached to his department is likely to give all stakeholders a fair...

The Centre is likely to raise remuneration under its rural job guarantee scheme and align it with the notified minimum wages of states following a court order last month.  Millions of workers enrolLED under the government’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) are entitLED . 100 a day for a minimum of 100 days of work in a year. Despite the wage now being linked to the consumer price...

-The Hindu   Noted Jaipur-based economist V. S. Vyas has expressed concern over “progressive diminution” of cultivated holdings which he says has LED to stagnation in the yield of major crops and rendered agricultural income insufficient for farmers to make ends meet. A sharp decline was also being witnessed in per capita food production, he said. Delivering the Tarlok Singh Memorial Lecture at the University of Hyderabad over the weekend, Professor Vyas said...