-Newsclick.in The government asked the ineligible individuals to surrender their ration cards by May 20 or face disciplinary actions. Lucknow: The scheme of free ration distribution is believed to have had a tremendous impact on the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) victory in the recently-concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. Buoyed by its victory, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, in the first decision on the second day of his second consecutive term, declared that his...

-TheWire.in * According to the Union health ministry’s new Rural Health Statistics report, for 2020-2021, primary health centres have a surplus of doctors. * This could be true – although there are doubts about whether the report included the number of doctors on transitory, ad hoc appointments as well. * The report fails to capture the qualitative aspects of doctors’ availability at PHCs, including a hidden problem motivated by the absence of sufficient...

-Newsclick.in The high healthcare costs were expected to be addressed through the introduction of health insurance by the Union government, but it covers less than 30% of hospital charges leaving a heavy financial burden on the poor. Health outcomes have remained grossly unequal, with India's dalits and adivasis living shorter lives of poorer quality, as per a recent paper published by Oxfam India. Private infrastructure now accounts for nearly 62% of India's...

-Financial Express Dataset and methodological weaknesses cast doubt on recent poverty estimates that claim drastic reduction Bhalla, Bhasin and Virmani in a working paper (IMF), claimed India’s poverty, per a $1.9 per person per day poverty line (at PPP), was 0.9% of the population in 2020. Thanks to government transfer of free rations of 5 kg per person month, it fell to 0.8% (from 0.9% in 2019). Roy and de Velt, for...

-OutlookIndia.com The new welfarism as part of the neoliberal reforms undertaken in early 1990s is yet to ensure that all citizens receive enough nutritious food In December last year, Anjali—a student of MNM Government Girls School at Gangavati in Karnataka’s Koppal district—vented out her anger against deprivation of basic nutritious food, a chronic problem that plagues more than a quarter of India’s total population. In a viral rant, she called the bluff...