Among the many reasons cited for India to proceed ahead with the Unique Identification (UID) project -that it will facilitate delivery of basic services, that it will plug leakages in public expenditure and that it will speed up achievement of targets in social sector schemes - the most specious is perhaps the claim that it will help India reach her public health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Despite impressive economic growth in...
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Kind to cash by Richard Mahapatra
The government has a plan to reach welfare to the poor without wasting money. It wants to put hard cash in their hands instead of spending on welfare programmes. To begin with, it wants to end the public distribution system of food grain and give money directly to the people. Its logic: the new system of cash transfer will plug leakages and save an enormous amount of money. But is it...
More »Why did Vypari Bai die? by Kalpana Sharma
Women in rural India continue to die because of indifference and neglect by healthcare authorities... This is a public health warning. Do not express concern for the state of healthcare in this country. Do not express anger that women die because they are either denied care or help is delayed when they have complicated pregnancies. Do not demand that healthcare is an entitlement that the poor have a right to demand...
More »NAC won't give in, takes battle into public domain by Smita Gupta
The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has decided to take its battle with the government on the now-controversial issue of food security into the public domain. Eight days after the Rangarajan panel, appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, rejected its recommendations on food security, the NAC has decided to dig in its heels, reflecting, council sources said, “Ms. Gandhi's determination to go ahead.” Indeed, on Friday, the NAC, at its ninth...
More »Towards a Comprehensive Food Security Bill for All by Dipa Sinha
The NAC proposals for the food security bill are narrow and lack in vision. What is needed is a comprehensive bill with universalisation of PDS and a focus on child malnutrition. There was much excitement when food security became one of the issues in the manifestos of most major political parties in the run up to the 2009 General Elections. With burgeoning food stocks, double-digit food inflation, stagnant malnutrition rates, declining...
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