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Regular readers will know that we think the rules of crisis management are changing: storms blow up and blow away very fast in this age of Twitter and Instagram. It's often safe to just shelter until the micro storm passes. (If you doubt us, ask the Mayor of Toronto, still happily in office more than six weeks after allegedly being caught on video … [Read more...] about How not to handle a problem – look to HPV vaccines in Japan

Specialist doctors prefer low-cost devices to reduce maternal mortality and ensure better healthcare for women in India. They feel that by using low-cost devices, quality healthcare can be provided to reduce the maternal mortality ratio in India where people live in remote and inaccessible areas. On a pilot basis, the Federation of Obstetrics … [Read more...] about Low-cost devices developed to reduce maternal mortality in India

Mark Chataway is very proud to be on the board of Engender Health. They've just screened this brilliant, award-winning ad from Tanzania for us. It's about domestic violence but watch until the end! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LCFw5sGSPw … [Read more...] about Award-winning spot on domestic violence

At first, the Indian media gave generics giant, Ranbaxy an easy ride when it had to pay over $500M to Us authorities over fraud and adulteration allegations (see our commentary here and our follow up piece here). Now the meda pack are in full pursui. Today's Hindustan Times reports Apollo, India's largest retail pharmacy chain, has issued … [Read more...] about Indian media pack turns on the worlds largest generic producer

A front page story in Canada's biggest newspaper, The Globe and Mail revisits the great debate over sterilisation in India. The Globe & Mail relies heavily on activists who are highly critical of government policy. One, for example, says  "“The construction of the population problem is a middle-class creation ... and it has caste and class … [Read more...] about Is The Indian family planning policy coercive and abusive?

A year-and-a-half-long experiment with universal unconditional cash transfers by SEWA and UNICEF in 22 Madhya Pradesh villages has shown that the poor do use cash for better schooling, health and food.  Cash transfer schemes can work accoding to this study. Renana Jhabvala, president of SEWA Bharat, and Guy Standing, professor at the School of … [Read more...] about Do cash transfer schemes work? Study by SEWA and UNICEF shows they do

There are many innovative treatments in health all over the world that are interesting to read about. In recent news, Dr. Kalpana Katti, Dr. Dinesh Katti and doctoral student Avinash Ambre from North Dakota State University, Fargo, have come up with a novel method that uses nano-sized clays to make scaffolds to mineralise bone minerals such as … [Read more...] about Innovation in health: New method uses clays to grow human bones

For years, advisers have told pharma clients that it is hard to find an example of reputation problems affecting the bottom line: the purchasing process is so complex (doctor – pharmacist – patient with insurers and wholesalers in the mix) that reputation worries don’t seem to hit sales. Ranbaxy might be disproving all the articles and lectures on … [Read more...] about Indian patients demand non-Ranbaxy medicines

A fascinating piece in the current edition of Foreign Affairs (the summary is here http://fam.ag/10MY53A but you need a subscription to read it). The author thinks that India does not have a coherent foreign policy and that most decisions are made by highly autonomous senior Indian Foreign Service officers. There are weaknesses in her methodology … [Read more...] about Is The Indian foreign policy too feeble to let it lead?