Health issues in India
In Gujarat last month, voters turned to the polls to protest water scarcity in the state – by sitting them out entirely. The 17th Lok Sabha polls in Ahmedabad was the scene of fanfare on April 23rd, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi cast his vote in this year’s elections. However, elsewhere in the state, many […]
It is not even summer season and great swathes of India’s land are suffering from drought, recently published data reveals. This is according to an IndiaSpend analysis of figures from the Drought Early Warning System (DEWS), which contains dire implications for an enormous number of Indians and a sizeable proportion of the country’s land. At […]
The fraught relationship between policymakers and India’s vaping community will not become any less contentious for the foreseeable future. On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court stayed a Union Health Ministry directive to state governments issued last year, encouraging them to ban electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) – commonly known as e-cigarettes or ‘vapes’. The Centre […]
A sharp and worrying rise in pollution rates is being felt especially in the north of India, whose metros dominate the list of India’s most polluted cities. Bihar capital Patna tops the list. Kanpur and Varanasi – both in Uttar Pradesh – follow in second and third place respectively. Delhi places fourth in the rankings, […]
The BJP government’s large-scale health insurance initiative was rolled out in some states today, to coincide with Independence Day celebrations across the country. Though some anticipated a full-scale launch of the programme, the scheme was not launched nationwide but began a gradual rollout in select states. Full rollout of the scheme is expected on September […]
Gender discrimination and missing women The price of gender discrimination in India is the lives of almost 240,000 girls under five every year. Much attention is given in India to the issue of female foeticide. Sex-selective abortions are considered the major driver of India’s skewed sex ratio at birth (SRB) and its resultant 63 million […]
In a drastic response to a crisis involving health workers leaving their duties to go on strike, the Bihar government has urged health centres to begin recruiting as the government intends to terminate the contracts of up to 80,000 health workers. Huge numbers of health workers have gone on strike within Bihar. The strike is […]
‘Nations Within a Nation’ A groundbreaking new study published today in The Lancet spotlights a major concern about healthcare in India: the vast disparities between its states. ‘Nations Within a Nation’, touted as ‘the first comprehensive analysis of health in India’, shows that the ‘substantial gains in healthcare’ made by India in recent years have […]
Ashwini Choubey, a health minister from Bihar, has accused Bihari patients of overcrowding the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi – and says doctors should turn them away. A ‘BJP veteran’ appointed in September, Choubey has been roundly criticised for remarks allegedly made at the launch of Mission Idradhanush, an immunization drive earlier […]
