Feature Article

round salt: In what may be a boon to consumers and industry, a group of chemists in India has reported a method to make round salt. Scientists have been striving for years to smoothen the shape of

• At least 40 animal rights activists, mostly female protesters holding banners reading, "Cats and dogs are friends of human beings' recently swarmed into a restaurant, the Fangji Cat Meatball restaurant, in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and forced it to shut.

www.anfrel.org Working democracy The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) operates this site under review. Established in 1997, this network of civil society organisations aims to

Marine fisheries have become very energy intensive

Goa plasma pyrolysis plant draws criticism

Medical education is in the news for all the wrong reasons. The government s decision to extend reservations in institutions of higher education under the Centre triggered off a storm of protest, led by medical students. There were spurious arguments on b

The lack of focus on public health is a result of faulty planning in the initial years after independence when the colonial system, weighted heavily in favour of the privileged, was allowed to continue. In time-honoured style, moreover, the government set up a series of committees but the state of public health did not undergo significant changes.

The anti-reservation agitation sparked off by Union human resources development minister Arjun Singh's announcement of an increase in reservations in institutions of higher education, including medical colleges, highlighted several issues.

Global patterns of funding clearly show that medical education remains very much a state-dominated sector. In countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

MCI is the body that is supposed to monitor and enforce standards of medical education in both the private and state sector. mci, a statutory body under the mohfw , was established under the provisions of the Indian Medical Council (imc) Act, 1933.