Good morning. Three stories today, and each one turns on a number somebody finally checked. The first reads like a crime novel. It is a police chargesheet.
— DR. ADITYA SETH, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
01 · THE LEAD
MEDICOLEGAL
₹3.82 crore to screen 50,000 people for TB. Police could verify only 23 of 543 names.
A coal company approved ₹3.82 crore for a simple-sounding project: screen 50,000 people for tuberculosis.
The project was funded through corporate social responsibility (CSR) money—the money large companies are required to spend on social causes. South Eastern Coalfields, a Coal India subsidiary, gave the work to a trust and paid the first instalment of ₹38.25 lakh.
But Mumbai Crime Branch says the man running the trust was not a doctor. According to its chargesheet, he had worked as a hospital helper in Bihar.
Then investigators checked the screening records.
Of 543 names submitted from Bilaspur, police could verify only 23 against Aadhaar records. The remaining 520 could not be matched.
The bank transactions raised more questions. Investigators found money arriving and leaving accounts within 72 hours, and the trust paying a private company’s salaries. Police say around ₹188 crore moved through roughly 30 accounts.
WHY IT MATTERS
Ask for the number. A registration takes a minute to check on the NMC's Indian Medical Register, and the chargesheet does not say anyone ever checked his.
If you sign for a camp, you sign for its list. Doctors associated with camps and CSR projects should understand the work and records they are signing for. In this case, the beneficiary list became central to the investigation.
None of it is proven yet. He has been charged, and nothing has been tested in court.
02 · POLICY
The Centre capped cancer drug margins at 30%. The Supreme Court wants to know why other medicines aren't.
Your patient pays the MRP printed on the strip, and that number can sit far above what the chemist paid for it. Yesterday, Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta told the Centre it was letting this happen in plain view, and said the drug price regulator, the NPPA, looked "totally defunct". The government's lawyer replied that Indian medicines are among the cheapest in the world. The bench has reserved its order.
03 · EXAMS AND ADMISSIONS
40 of the top 100 took Radiology last year. This year 28 did, and it still finished second.
Only General Medicine drew more toppers. Government MD Open seats in Radiology ran out at rank 3,058 in Round 1. Last year, Round 2 pushed that line from 2,920 to 4,137, after about a third of Radiology allottees let their seat go. Round 2 opens on 6 November. If your rank, or your intern's, sits between those two lines, the full story shows what last year's Round 2 did for each category, and why so many toppers took DNB over MD.
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