-Scroll.in Administrations are not supposed to cut off rations but health officials seem to think that the threat will work. Experts denounce the measure. “Tikkakaran nahin toh khadyadhan nahin.” No vaccination, no ration. Rajwanti Devi Jaiswal, an Accredited Social Health Activist or ASHA in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district repeated the slogan so often that it sounded like a chant. The district has one of the lowest child immunisation rates in India –...

-The Hindu The findings of the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative will aid in decentralised health planning Policymakers in India need reliable disease burden data at subnational levels. Planning based on local trends can improve the health of populations more effectively. Till now, a comprehensive assessment of the diseases causing the most premature deaths and ill health in each State, the risk factors responsible for this burden and their time trends have...

Although life expectancy at birth for both the sexes has improved over the last quarter of a century, a recent report points out that ‘non-communicable diseases’ (NCDs) now account for a larger proportion of total deaths vis-à-vis ‘communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional disease' (CMNNDs). The report entitled India: Health of the Nation’s States - The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative, which has been prepared after two years of intense collaborative...

-The Hindu What is the report? The India State-Level Disease Burden report, a first-of-its-kind assessment of causes for diseases in each State from 1990 to 2016, was released recently. A team of scientists evaluated the diseases causing the most premature deaths and ill-health in each State. It found out, for instance, that life expectancy at birth in the country has improved significantly. What is worrying? However, the report indicated many health inequalities among States,...

-Down to Earth Shockingly, the state’s infant mortality rate is worse than Jharkhand; it also has the fourth lowest teacher student ratio in the country “Social development indicators have not been able to keep pace with economic development in this state of over 60 million people," UNICEF had observed about Gujarat back in 2013. Four years later, Maitreesh Ghatak of London School of Economics writes about Gujarat’s development model: “When it...