-The Hindu The Union Ministry of Labour has done well to raise the salary cap for availing Employees' State Insurance (ESI) to Rs.25,000. While the move is expected to expand coverage to an additional five million workers and their dependents, this is still small comfort in a country where barely three per cent of the workforce enjoys any social protection. The evolution of ESI has been characterised by an accent...

-The Business Standard Varad Pande, officer on special duty, ministry of rural development, says the Aadhaar identification project aims to cover at least half of country’s population by next year. He talks about where it has reached, in an interview with Samie Modak & Abhineet Kumar. Edited excerpts: * What is the Aadhaar project’s status? The project started about two years earlier and now has a little more than 270 million enrolled, roughly...

-The Hindu Unless the government regulates the growth of the private sector and makes it accountable, the worn-down public health infrastructure cannot be revitalised The absence of a well thought out policy framework for strengthening the health system is the most important issue facing the health sector in India. In the government, there is no clarity on what the nation’s health system should be 10 years hence. Should it be a public...

-The Hindu Brazil, Mexico and Thailand have done it. Many countries with a sound understanding of development look at Universal Health Coverage as a vital requirement to achieve it. India is at a crossroads. Introducing UHC in the 12th Plan can transform the lives of Indians, create new jobs and galvanise the economy. Most people would agree that one’s income or caste or gender should not bar one’s ability to get decent...

-Reuters   Cheap generic drugs were meant to change the life of Nandakhu Nissar, whose mouth is swollen by a cancerous tumour. But the cashless and hungry 55-year-old sleeps on a pavement staring up at the windows of Mumbai's biggest cancer hospital.  "What is a generic drug?" shrugs Nissar, who has travelled over 1,500 kms (900 miles) from his home in the hope of treatment. "I have borrowed money from friends and relatives...