Livemint Recent deaths in Gambia, Uzbekistan and the US, allegedly caused by toxic drugs made in India, has the Centre reportedly planning to centralize drug regulation. How effective will this measure be? The Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) is the apex regulatory body. Each state has its own regulator. The state regulators look after licencing and audit manufacturing facilities while CDSCO is responsible for approving new drugs, imports of devices, clinical...

-The Hindu Official secrecy on pandemic policies aggravates a crisis In August 2020, the Modi government constituted the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC) as a nodal agency on all matters related to vaccine administration and rollout. Asked under the Right to Information (RTI) Act for details of the NEGVAC’s meetings, the Health Ministry, which anchors the expert group, replied that it does not know where the concerned documents...

In the month of April this year, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in daily new cases and daily new deaths in the country due to Covid-19. States, which reported large increases in daily new cases and daily new deaths, are Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, to name but a few.   Data accessed from https://www.covid19india.org/, which is a crowdsourced platform and an independent aggregator of daily Covid-19 figures and...

-The Hindu PM chairs meeting; number of new cases crosses 1 lakh. The Russia-made Sputnik V vaccine may be cleared for emergency use in India within 10 days, a highly placed official confirmed to The Hindu on condition of anonymity. The possible approval for a third vaccine candidate comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a high-level meeting on Sunday to review the situation and the on-going vaccination programme with the number of...

-PTI/ Livemint.com * Being Health Minister of the country, how justified is it to release such falsely fabricated unscientific product, the IMA statement said * The IMA statement further said: Can you clarify the time frame, time line for the so-called clinical trial of this said anti-corona product The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Monday said that it shocked over Patanjali Ayurveda's "blatant lie of WHO certification" for Coronil tablet, which the company...