-The Hindu Low allocations and specific policy statements point to greater privatisation and withdrawal of the state Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman began her speech by saying that the Union Budget was “woven around three prominent themes” — aspirational India, economic development for all and building a caring society. Achieving any of these would require extraordinary efforts on the social sector front starting with allocating additional resources for health, education, nutrition, employment...

-The New Indian Express The proposal, mentioned in the Budget, has raised doubts. NEW DELHI: The idea to privatise district hospital — on which the Centre’s top think tank Niti Aayog is still trying to build consensus — was declared as the official policy of the Modi government on Saturday. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech, said that district hospitals will be attached with private medical colleges on public-private...

-The Indian Express As India inches towards its goal of universal healthcare, there is a need for the budget to try to ensure that healthcare sector requirements are well funded and the budget contains provisions that energise accessible, affordable and quality healthcare. Here's what the government can do to boost the healthcare sector. India’s annual healthcare spend hovers around 4 per cent of GDP with high out of pocket expenditure and low...

-The Hindu The AAP will hope that the Assembly polls are a referendum on its government’s work Delhi, the Union Territory (UT) that hosts India’s capital city, might lag behind several States in total population and in area, but it enjoys outsize significance in terms of media and political attention. With 1.47 crore electors spread across the largely metropolitan national capital region and its pockets of rural voters in some suburbs, Delhi...

-The Indian Express Government could give fertiliser subsidy directly to farmers and let them decide if they want to practise zero budget natural farming or use chemical-fertilisers. The Narendra Modi government completed 100 days of its second term (Modi 2.0) last week. On this occasion, most cabinet ministers spoke of the achievements of their ministries. The headlines in newspapers were, however, about the abrogation of Article 370, or the biggest slump...