Dear Express Explained reader,
The national drug regulator has cleared Serum Institute of India’s Cervavac, the country’s first quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine (qHPV) vaccine. It’s an important development — providing what could be a real opportunity to eliminate cervical cancer (which is preventable but is still estimated to kill a woman every 8 minutes) in the country, should it be made part of national HPV vaccination strategies, and made available for cheaper than the vaccines that are currently available. Anuradha Mascarenhas wrote about HPV and cervical cancer, existing vaccines, and opportunities that Cervavac presents. Separately, Anonna Dutt spoke with Dr Kishore Singh, head of the Delhi State Cancer Institute, which runs India’s only public HPV vaccination programme for schoolchildren, for an exclusive expert’s view of the development. Do read.
Having lost the majority of its representatives in the Maharashtra Assembly and Parliament to the faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray has requested the Election Commission of India to hear its side before deciding on the ownership of the party’s bow-and-arrow election symbol. What happens when rival factions of a party lay competing claims to the same election symbol? What does the ECI consider before making its decision — and how has it decided in such cases earlier? Do check out Ritika Chopra’s very informative and topical explainer.
There was some political controversy this week after the Lok Sabha Secretariat released a 50-odd-page compilation of words deemed unfit for use in Parliament. There was incredulity because the list has innocuous words such as abused, ashamed, betrayal, cheated, corruption, coward, and criminal. While Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla clarified that no words had been banned automatically, and that the Chair would decide which words to expunge from the record, there is an interesting history of curbs on “unparliamentary” language in India. Liz Mathew wrote on the rules of expunction, the process of preparing the list of disallowed words and expressions, and why context, like everywhere else, is key in Parliament as well.
The Supreme Court has batted strongly for reform in the law related to bail, and called on the government to enact special legislation on the subject on the lines of the United Kingdom. This is an important observation, because courts around the country have been seemingly deciding differently on bail in cases that have appeared to be broadly similar. Apurva Vishwanath wrote on the existing law on bail, and what the Supreme Court has said earlier on the subject.
