-Economic and Political Weekly   A report on the 2013 deliberation of the Kolkata Group at its 10th workshop which focused on healthcare, the status of women and social justice in India. A K Shiva Kumar (akshivakumar@gmail.com) is convener of the Kolkata Group workshops which are organised by Pratichi (India) Trust, the Harvard Global Equity Initiative and UNICEF India. At the 10th annual Kolkata Group workshop in February this year, 40 policymakers, development practitioners,...

-PTI NEW DELHI: The Planning Commission today approved a plan size of Rs 16,626 crore for Delhi for 2013-14, up 4.8 per cent from the previous fiscal. It was at Rs 15,862 crore for 2012-13. The plan size was decided here at a meeting between Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Delhi Chief Minister Delhi Sheila Dikshit. "We have reviewed all aspects of the Delhi economy. Citizen services in Delhi over...

-The Hindu     Residents cannot believe they will get Hogenakkal scheme water from today Hogenakkal (Dharmapuri): Fifty-one-year-old Unnamalai of Mangarai at Pennagaram in Dharmapuri district breaks into a smile at the prospect of getting potable water from Wednesday under the Rs.1,928-crore Hogenakkal water supply Scheme and Fluorosis Mitigation Project. It has been such a long wait that she and many others in the rural areas of Hogenakkal cannot believe that the scheme has been...

-The Business Standard USFDA's zero tolerance policy requires our drug firms to reorient not just processes but organisational cultures to serve that market credibly The following two quotes from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) news releases may help put the Ranbaxy controversy in perspective. The first sums up what it is that drives the FDA and the second is typical of the challenge the pharmaceutical industry faces. (1) "The consent...

-Frontline The Central government's proposal to hand over the supply of supplementary nutrition to NGOs in the name of "community participation" is surely an invitation for private profiteering on the back of this supposedly public scheme. ENSURING safe and healthy conditions for the reproduction of the population is obviously the most fundamental requirement of any society. So the progress of a society can be determined (and indeed is routinely judged) by the...