Making Cancer Notifiable: Supreme Court Nudges 19 States and UTs as India Seeks Uniform Cancer Reporting

Writing in The Indian Express on 6 October 2026, Jyotsna Govil, chairperson of the Indian Cancer Society's Delhi branch, urged States to act on a recent Supreme Court order asking the 19 States and Union Territories that have not yet declared cancer a notifiable disease to consider doing so, and asking whether mandatory central guidelines are needed for uniformity. She called on the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to frame a standard minimum dataset, common definitions and timelines, uniform privacy safeguards and compliance rules, so that notification produces a comparable national picture.