Health issues in India
The Supreme Court has reversed plans by the Centre to ban three of the 328 combination medications it announced plans to ban last week over safety concerns. Saridon, Piriton and Dart are the three products given a reprieve by the apex court. The ban will still apply to 325 of 343 fixed dose combination (FDC) medications whose […]
The Supreme Court is seeking answers from the Centre about the treatment of leprosy patients and India’s progress against the disease. The SC, responding to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy (VCLP), has directed the Centre to enact a central law barring discrimination against leprosy patients. It is […]
Homosexuality is no longer a crime in India, after the Supreme Court ruled Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to be unconstitutional last week. The 158-year-old law had criminalised sexual intercourse “against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal” – proscribing same-sex relations as a result. Violating the law carried a […]
Leprosy will be eradicated from India in 2018, Union Health Minister J. P. Nadda announced earlier this year. Could discrimination threaten achievement of this goal? Archaic laws dating to 1898 regarding the treatment of those suffering from leprosy were in effect until 2016. After this a bill was passed seeking to eradicate social stigma surrounding […]
The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition challenging the Centre’s new guidelines for tobacco products. From September 1, tobacco products – including cigarettes, bidis and chewing tobaccos – will have to display a new set of graphic images and text warnings such as ‘tobacco causes painful death’ and ‘tobacco causes cancer.’ The number for a […]
India is stepping up efforts to encourage its 120 million smokers to kick the habit. From September, tobacco product packaging will be required to showcase a new set of pictorial and textual health warnings. They will also have to carry the number for a toll-free line to help tobacco users quit. The new guidelines were issued […]
Euthanasia law in India has changed following a landmark Supreme Court ruling earlier this month which said patients have the ‘right to die.’ The country’s apex court has ruled that passive euthanasia is permissible in the case of terminally ill patients whose condition has deteriorated irreversibly. To this end, the living will has been legalised […]
A controversial tobacco ruling has been stayed by India’s Supreme Court, leading public health advocates to rejoice – and the tobacco industry to fume. Last year, the Karnataka High Court (KHC) ruled against a Union health ministry directive which said pictorial health warnings had to cover 85 percent of the display area on tobacco product […]
The Indian Supreme Court has ruled that privacy is an inherent right of Indian people. This is a landmark verdict which could have implications for biometric database Aadhaar. The largest biometric database in the world Aadhaar is a national identification system, promoted by the Indian government. More than 1.12 billion Indians – more than 88 […]
A Supreme Court ruling says internet search engines should not be stopped from showing content about prenatal sex determination, only ads. The ruling suggests efforts to restrict prenatal sex determination in order to stymie female foeticide in India are going too far and becoming too intrusive. The ruling comes amidst the continuing and long-standing controversy […]
