The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...

All social communities have a history that is experienced, or perceived, or both. Communities survive and sustain themselves on these histories. When political forces try to mobilise these communities, they usually do so by exploring their history and then giving it a political meaning that suits their agenda. In the beginning, when the political party is new, it gives space and respect to the small histories of each community that...

-AFP The world's young increasingly fear a future without jobs, according to a UN report released Monday which highlighted how the 15-30 age group risks becoming the biggest victims of austerity programs.  The young doubt the education they receive will fully arm them for professional life, said the World Youth Report which questioned about 1,000 people for its study.  "Young people questioned the quality of education they and their peers receive, whether or...

Valley’s youth say peaceful political protests are the most effective means for achieving political aspirations. Estrangement from India is matched by the lack of interest in Pakistan In 2010 the Ministry of Home Affairs had commissioned a focussed survey on the priorities and aspirations of Kashmir’s new generation, which had spearheaded the long spell of unrest, and found that 54 per cent of them identified “Azadi” as their preferred “final status...

-The Economic Times The charges of embezzlement of funds for the rural employment scheme may be contributing to the political battle between the Congress and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh, but it appears that, in real terms, political wrangling does not have any significant effect on its implementation. According to a study by the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, the UP government's lack of ownership of the programme, along with low...