-The Hindu The challenge for the Modi government is to evaluate what works in development programming before making large spending decisions Governments in India have always launched big-ticket social development programmes with ambitious goals. The Narendra Modi government is no exception. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan aims to make India open defecation-free by 2019. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana's financial inclusion programme set a target of opening 10 crore bank accounts by January...

-The Hindu Chennai: The reason why a large number of children under the age of five years die of diarrhoea and pneumonia, generally in rural India and especially in Bihar, has become clear. Diarrhoea and pneumonia are the biggest killer diseases in children in India. With 55 per 1,000 live births, Bihar has the highest infant mortality rate in the country. But 340 health care providers in rural Bihar rarely practice what...

-The Hindu Jaipur: Opposing the proposed insurance-based model of health care for those covered under the National Food Security Act, civil society groups have asked Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to reconsider the decision as this would mean compromising and sidelining the immensely successful free medicines and free diagnostics schemes already operational in the State. "Given the complex socio-economic dynamics of the population, complete non-adherence to standard Treatment protocols by the doctors,...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Here's why drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) breeds freely in Mumbai: Patients don't get appropriate medication. A new study collating information from eight hospitals and Treatment centres across Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai found patients were given drugs that they were resistant to. The study, published in PLOS ONE medical journal recently, looked at 340 patients suffering from multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB between 2005 and 2013. "We found only 29.4% of...

-The Indian Express "If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one." So said Fritz Machlup, a wise American economist several decades ago. His words remain as true now as they were then. For, the patent system is one of the most faulty legal regimes that one could possibly have conceived. It purports...