-The Hindu Budgetary support must be strengthened to make Ayushman Bharat a success Ayushman Bharat has been rolled out as a health protection scheme that will provide guaranteed access to treatment that is free at the point of delivery to about 40% of the population selected on the basis of censused socio-economic indicators. It is the essential first step on the road to universal health coverage, although it has been launched by...

-The Hindu It's time we stopped neglecting urban ecosystems Countless poets and lovers have declaimed over the ages that Venice is not just a city; it’s a living dream. By that same measure, irreverent others would hold that during the monsoons in India, its cities are more than just cities; they are lived nightmares. Venice’s waterways are celebrated the world over and hordes of tourists descend on the city every year. In...

-The Indian Express It is important to evaluate the consequences of the Centre’s agriculture policy. With elections around the corner, it’s too late for a course correction of the farm sector, but it’s an opportune time to document the unintended consequences of half-baked policies for the next five years. Otherwise, the momentum of existing policies will continue to feed rural economic misery. Agriculture GDP growth plummeted just as India’s agricultural trade surplus,...

-The Indian Express The study also says that mobility levels for African Americans in US are better than those for Muslims in India but the movement of Dalits and Scheduled Tribes is comparable to that of African-Americans. New Delhi: As rising aspirations of India’s demographic dividend shape social and political discourse, comes a sobering new study: Looking at education and income, there is little inter-generational mobility (upward mobility from parent to child)...

-The Indian Express The under-five mortality of the girl child is 2.5 per cent higher (40 deaths per 1,000 live births) than the under-five mortality of the boy child (39 deaths per 1,000 live births). New Delhi: In what is a major milestone in reduction of child deaths in India, the country’s under five mortality rate, for the first time, has been estimated at 39 deaths per 1,000 live births, the same...