-The Hindu India ranks among the lowest in the world in public spending on health, but the private spending is one of the highest. The National Sample Survey Organisation’s report (2006) shows over 35 per cent of people who are hospitalised fall below the poverty line because of the expenses that follow, and over 40 per cent have to borrow or sell assets to pay for their care. Private sector provision...

-The Financial Express As the Centre braces for an expanded distribution of grain among the poor under the national food security law, here’s a sobering thought. According to the latest official data, various state governments have failed to utilise even the grain allocated under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). During the last three fiscal years, states have not been able to take the full delivery of grain — mostly rice and...

-The Economic Times Ram Kishen, 52, half-blind and half- starved, holds in his gnarled hands the reason for his hunger: a tattered card entitling him to subsidised rations that now serves as a symbol of India's biggest food heist. Kishen has had nothing from the village shop for 15 months. Yet 20 minutes' drive from Satnapur, past bone-dry fields and tiny hamlets where children with distended bellies play, a government storage facility...

-The Telegraph The Supreme Court has said it wants to end judicial monitoring of social welfare schemes, saying the task should be left to experts and courts “can’t be setting economic policy”. The court had earlier taken umbrage at the government for fixing the poverty line at a measly Rs 32 per day per person in urban areas and suggested free distribution of foodgrain, causing consternation in the government which felt that...

-The Telegraph The state government is trying to work out a health insurance scheme to cover 10 lakh families living below the poverty line who do not benefit from the Centre’s Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY). At present about 25 lakh BPL families qualify for benefits under the central scheme while there are more than 35 lakh BPL families in the state according to a survey conducted a couple of years ago. The...