NRHM needs to revitalise systems, monitor their functional performance and investigate their impact on the indices of health. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched in 2005 to bring about a dramatic improvement in the health system and health status of people in rural India. It seeks to provide universal access to health care, which is affordable, equitable, and of good quality. It aims at making architectural corrections to basic...

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has described 2010 as a landmark year in Independent India's history in terms of the number of scams. In an editorial in the People's Democracy, party organ, it drew attention to the several disquieting trends that have emerged as a result. The year stood out as one which saw a serious attack on Parliament and the institutions of parliamentary democracy. Apart from the virtual annulling...

The National Advisory Council (NAC) is working to strengthen the new rights-based architecture in the country, by creating a mechanism that will put pressure on the States to strictly implement not just the Social Sector Schemes the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has created of late, but also those in the works such as the one related to food security. NAC sources told The Hindu that while the government had enacted laws...

he recent findings by the Labour Bureau's Employment and Unemployment Survey (2009-10) provide timely pointers to the manner in which liberalising India's workforce is coping with the changing times. The survey gives a snapshot of the country's employment and demographic situation. The estimated unemployment rate — in the region of 9.4 per cent (barring the five north-eastern States and the islands of Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar, where the survey...

Dr MS Swaminathan, NAC member and the father of India's green revolution talks to Rupashree Nanda on the food security legislation, the neglect in creating storage infrastructure and ideas like outsourcing food security issues. Rupashree Nanda: The main reason for the NAC climb down from the promised universal PDS to targeted PDS was the stated non - availability of foodgrains. Would you agree to that argument? Isn't there is not enough...