-Frontline Health activists say the health chapter of the Twelfth Plan document exaggerates the role of the private sector in providing health care. The draft chapter on health for the Twelfth Five Year Plan document not only is grossly inadequate in its approach but exaggerates to unrealistic levels the role of the private sector in providing health care. It invokes the concept of universal health care (UHC), but, critics say, it...

-The Telegraph The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to explain why state-run orphanages throw out inmates the day they turn 18 though they may be unemployed and unable to fend for themselves. Acting on a public interest litigation filed by lawyer Sudhanshu S. Choudhari, the court issued the notices on Tuesday to the Union women and child development ministry and its counterparts in all the states and Union territories. It asked the...

-Outlook Why free mobiles to BPL folks is a bad idea  “Here you don’t have money to provide them food, and you are thinking of giving them phones,” scoffs a minister in the UPA government, obviously off the record. His comment mirrors the general negative reaction to the ‘Har Haath Mein Phone’ scheme mooted by the Planning Commission, which aims to provide a free mobile phone to each below the poverty line...

-The Telegraph One Singh has told the Congress what another Singh probably wants to: create a political environment conducive for reducing subsidies. Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has told Congress MPs that subsidy cuts are essential if India has to preserve its growth momentum — a statement more in line with the known views of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh than the populist line preferred by many Congress leaders. Many Congress MPs,...

-ANI Delhi is set to become the first kerosene-free city in the country with the government all geared up to launch an ambitious scheme on Tuesday under which 3.56 lakh households will get LPG cylinder and a gas stove free Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit will distribute the cylinders and stove to 200 beneficiaries. All the families covered under Below Poverty Line (BPL), Antyodaya Anna Yojna (AAY) and Jhuggi Ration Card (JRC) schemes...