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Category: Editorials
January 01, 2008
Promoted by the government and fuelled by the corporate boom in medical care, India is increasingly seen as the favoured destination of "medical tourists" who cross national boundaries to seek treatment that is cheaper than in their home countries. Medical tourism is a multi-billion dollar indust...
October 01, 2007
Despite more than a half century of proclamations on primary healthcare, most rural facilities in India continue to lack enough providers, equipment and infrastructure to offer effective and efficient care. In the latest effort to address this inequitable distribution the union health and family ...
January 01, 2008
The Sukhadeo Thorat Committee, constituted to enquire into the alleged harassment of students from the scheduled castes and tribes in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, found widespread evidence of such harassment. To make matters worse, the committee found that the faculty, largely fro...
July 01, 2007
A recent Supreme Court judgement is unwelcome and regressive for the women's movement, especially for reproductive rights. When hearing an appeal in the Ghosh vs Ghosh divorce case, the court ruled on March 26, 2007: "If a husband submits himself for an operation of sterilisation without medical ...
July 01, 2007
On May 14, 2007, Binayak Sen was arrested by the Chattisgarh police under sections of the Chhatisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005, and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (2004) for alleged links with the banned Maoist groups. His arrest was the upshot of his attempts to raise issues...
January 01, 2007
Vaccines have fascinated public health and clinical practitioners since Edward Jenner's experimental inoculation of a young boy, James Philip, using cowpox blisters of the hand of Sarah Nelmes, a dairy worker. Less than 50 years later vaccination became the preferred method of combating smallpox ...
April 01, 2007
Recent press reports of kidneys being bought and sold in Tamil Nadu only brought to general notice what many doctors and nearly all patients with kidney failure already know: one can buy a kidney in Tamil Nadu or, for that matter, in many parts of this subcontinent. While the k...
October 01, 2006
For some time now, a set of scientists has been glorifying the "magic" of a "truth serum". They insist it can make hard-core criminals talk and spill the truth about their misdeeds. Medical professionals are often involved in experiments, for many decades now, with the various technologies that a...
October 01, 2006
Two predominant issues in the current pharmaceutical scenario in India are data exclusivity and the range of drugs under price control.
July 01, 2006
Perhaps no event in the recent past captured the imagination of the mainstream media as much as the protests against the proposal to introduce reservations for other backward classes in some institutions of higher education. Although a small but active group of doctors supports reservations, thei...