KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

-The Telegraph An important cause of this new epidemic is the aggressive marketing and the rising consumption of ultra-processed foods — usually high in salt, sugar and bad fats A report published in BMJ Global Health has revealed that obesity and other conditions related to weight are costing India around 1 per cent of its gross domestic product annually. Overweight and obesity make up the most common lifestyle ailment in India and...

-The Hindu Business Line The laws concerned are riddled with loopholes. A mandatory, enforceable code for ethical pharmaceutical marketing is a must The recent kerfuffle over a particular brand of the painkiller paracetamol 650 mg tablet is not really over the particular brand as much as about the unethical marketing tactics of the pharmaceutical industry in India. Gone are the days when a mere ball-point pen or a diary from a medical representative...

-Press release by by Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA-Kisan Swaraj) and the Right To Food Campaign (RTFC) dated June 20, 2022 Raipur/ New Delhi: Activists of Right to Food Campaign (RTFC) and Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) urged the Chhattisgarh government to abandon its rice fortification interventions. They appealed to the state government that it should not get coerced into distributing fortified rice in the food schemes...

-The Telegraph Research considers expenses arising out of visits to hospitals, clinics and doctors’ private chambers and not those from home visits by doctors New Delhi: Medicines account for the largest share of healthcare expenditure arising out of hospital visits by Indian households, whether seeking outpatient or inpatient services, but health-related non-Medical Expenses on travel or accommodation too pose big financial burdens, new research has indicated. The study, a comprehensive dissection of out-of-pocket...