With only 0.05% of the total area of the country, Delhi is home to 1.34% of India's population. This creates enormous pressure on natural and man-made resources, and generates situations in which non-health determinants may take precedence over the conventional determinants directly associated with health and health care.

Surveillance and monitoring do not evoke much enthusiasm among doctors. Perhaps we have forgotten what these terms mean and their true purpose. Surveillance is the continuous collection, analysis, interpretation, dissemination and feedback of health related data, and is essential for guiding prevention and control activities for any disease. (Editorial)

The Government of India set up the ‘Health Survey and Development Committee’, popularly known as the ‘Bhore Committee’ in 1943 to draw up the scheme of health services for the newly emerging independent India. The recommendations made by the committee remain a landmark in the development of health services in the country and continue to inspire the health workers in the country in their struggle for developing pro-people health system.

The newly created Department of Health Research of the central health ministry has formulated the draft National Health Research Policy 2011, improving upon the 2010 version.

The framework for antibiotic discovery, development and approval is broken — only four new classes of antibiotics have been launched in the past 40 years. The World Health Organization forecasts a disaster due to the rapid, unchecked increase in antimicrobial resistance and has just announced a policy to combat its spread. But antibiotic resistance cannot be eliminated by stewardship alone. There needs to be a sustained effort from government and industry to develop new drugs quickly.

During the years prior to the turn of the century, scientific and medical attention for genetic disorders was mainly focused on understanding rare single-gene disorders, such as Huntington's disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and cystic fibrosis (CF), as well as chromosomal abnormalities. The medical specialty of clinical genetics was established in the 1980s and 1990s in many European countries to diagnose these kinds of rare disorders and to counsel patients and families.