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Thursday, April 30, 2026

NEWS TODAY 30.04.2026

NMC nod to cardiology diploma after years of wait

30.04.2026

New Delhi : In a move that resolves a long-standing regulatory impasse, National Medical Commission (NMC) has granted recognition to Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Cardiology (PGDCC), effectively validating the degrees of around 1,700 doctors who completed the course between 2006 and 2013.

The programme, run by IGNOU, was effectively shut down after 2013 following its non-recognition by erstwhile Medical Council of India. The decision, announced by Indian Association of Clinical Cardiologists on Tuesday, is also being seen as a step towards addressing shortage of cardiology specialists in underserved regions. The decision comes against the backdrop of cardiovascular disease accounting for nearly 28% of deaths in India, even as access to specialists remains skewed towards cities.

Nearly 65–70% of the country’s population lives outside major cities, but over 80% of cardiologists are based in urban centres, leaving large regions dependent on general physicians and delayed referrals. India has fewer than 5,000–6,000 cardiologists for over 1.4 billion people—roughly one per 2–3 lakh—which is far below global norms. “India is facing a widening and underreported shortage of cardiology specialists,” said Dr Rakesh Gupta of Indian Academy of Echocardiography. TNN

750 MP engg seats remained unfilled last yr, 66 colleges closed down

Bhopal : 30.04.2026

In what points to a sorry state of affairs and a potential existential crisis for engineering education in Madhya Pradesh, as many as 750 seats remained unclaimed across the state in the last year alone while 66 engineering institutions closed down over the last ten years, official numbers with the technical education dept have revealed, reports Ramendra Singh .

Marked by plummeting placements and waning interest in traditional engineering branches, colleges are being forced to surrender seats or shut down entirely, pointing to a shift toward employability over volume. As per the dept, 138 colleges offer 74,722 seats, a sharp decline from 200 colleges and 95,000 seats in 2015-16

NMC removes cap on MBBS seats, eases population norm

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 30.04.2026

New Delhi : In a significant policy shift, National Medical Commission (NMC) has removed key restrictions on expansion of MBBS seats, opening the door for a substantial increase in undergraduate medical seats across the country. In a gazette notification issued on April 27, NMC amended its 2023 regulations governing new medical colleges and expansion of existing courses. The amendment deletes a clause that capped total number of MBBS seats at 150 per college for those seeking expansion from 2024–25 academic year.

Colleges seeking to increase intake will no longer be bound by this upper limit. The commission has also removed the requirement that states maintain a ratio of 100 MBBS seats per 10 lakh population.

In another change, NMC has revised norms related to the distance between a medical college and its teaching hospital. Instead of a traveltime cap of 30 minutes, the rules now prescribe a maximum distance of 10 km. For northeastern and Himalayan states, the limit has been relaxed to 15 km.

The amendments have been notified under NMC Act, 2019, and apply to both Undergraduate Medical Education Board’s seat expansion guidelines and Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023. The move is expected to benefit both govt and private medical colleges looking to scale up capacity, particularly in states where demand for seats continues to outstrip supply, while placing the onus on regulators to maintain quality and infrastructure standards.

Commission’s nod to cardiology diploma after years of wait

New Delhi : In a move that resolves a long-standing regulatory impasse, National Medical Commission has granted recognition to Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Cardiology (PGDCC), effectively validating the degrees of around 1,700 doctors who completed the course between 2006 and 2013. The programme, run by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), was effectively shut down after 2013 following its non-recognition by erstwhile Medical Council of India. The decision, announced by Indian Association of Clinical Cardiologists on Tuesday, is also being seen as a step towards addressing shortage of cardiology specialists in underserved regions. The move comes against the backdrop of cardiovascular disease accounting for nearly 28% of deaths in India, even as access to specialists remains skewed towards cities. TNN

Exit polls differ on TN, WB, give Assam to BJP, Kerala to Cong AINRC-BJP Likely To Retain Puducherry

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 30.04.2026

Exit polls on Wednesday agreed that the BJP-led alliance would win Assam comfortably, the UDF would unseat the LDF in Kerala and the AINRC-BJP combine would retain Puducherry but disagreed on the outcome in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

The most startling prediction was Axis My India’s projection of Tamil Nadu being a tight race between the Vijay-led TVK (98-120 seats) and the DMK alliance (92-110) — in that order — with the AIADMK-led NDA reduced to an also ran in the 234-member House.

The other three exit polls being taken into account here all gave the DMK-led coalition a majority, though a reduced one from five years earlier. On West Bengal, while Axis MY India did not release its findings on Wednesday and some other well-known pollsters too preferred to wait for another day, of the three polls here, the one by P Marq projected BJP to most likely win a majority in the 294-member assembly and Matrize gave the saffron party the edge though not a majority in a state it has never won in the past. The third poll, People’s Pulse, in contrast, projected a decisive TMC victory that would give Mamata Banerjee a fourth consecutive term of office.

All four exit polls suggested that NDA was likely to win a two-thirds majority in the 126 member Assam assembly, which would also mean BJP for the first time winning a majority on its own in the state. The Congress-led alliance was projected to bag somewhere between 24 and 40 seats. In Kerala, the consensus was that the UDF would win though the projections ranged from as little as 70 of the 140 seats at the bottom of the Matrize range to 90 at the top end of the Axis My India range. The LDF was projected to end up with at best 69 seats. Exit polls have had a patchy record in India. The results will be known on May 4.