-The Indian Express We have, indeed, entered a regime of “permanent surpluses” in most crops — a reality our policymakers are unable to grasp, stuck as they are in the era of the Essential Commodities Act. If there is one thing that has changed in Indian agriculture in recent times, it is supply response — the ability of farmers to increase production when prices go up. Traditionally, the supply curve in most...

-TheWire.in The Government has fixed the insurance reimbursements for 1,354 medical procedures under its massive new scheme. They say they won’t revise this any further. New Delhi: Despite protests from the private health sector, that the Government’s reimbursements to them under the massive new health insurance scheme are too low, the Government has “frozen” these rates and is unlikely to change them. “The package rates are now frozen,” said health secretary Preeti Sudan. Dinesh...

-The Indian Express The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the NPPA are also documented as having given similar assurances in subsequent meetings. New Delhi: After the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) imposed price caps on coronary stents in February last year, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is documented as having “indicated” to representatives of foreign medical device companies in a meeting that the Indian Government has no plans to...

-Hindustan Times Contractual in nature, the lateral entry of experts should not alarm civil services unions. At the same time, it must be ensured that the policy is not misused for political purposes. The Government’s decision to recruit 10 senior bureaucrats through lateral entry is, in principle, a bold and long-overdue step. The Indian state apparatus suffers from three key deficiencies. Contrary to the widespread impression that it is bloated, the Government...

-TheWire.in Has Switzerland’s eagerness to export its vocational training and education model to India led to an unsatisfactory compromise that ultimately hurts the battle against poverty: granting a private company exclusive rights to the curriculum developed with Swiss taxpayers’ money? This year, India and Switzerland will celebrate 70 years of a Friendship Treaty that was signed by the two countries in 1948. A decade ago, the 60th anniversary of the Treaty was...