-The Hindu The introduction of educational qualifications as eligibility criteria for contesting panchayat elections has shocked and angered rural Rajasthan, including supporters of the ruling BJP When the literacy drive was in full force, I happened to visit a village in Ajmer district with a friend who was a civil servant. There was bold graffiti on a prominent school wall, which said: Saksharta ki kya pehchan? Upar chaddi, niche baniyan (How do...

-Economic and Political Weekly The key to improving the quality of healthcare services in India and reducing costs at the same time can be found by enacting legislation which lays down minimum standards of patient care. In the absence of such standards and the reluctance of health insurance companies to standardise either price or quality, healthcare services continue to be expensive and of doubtful quality. Developing standards of patient care by...

-The Hindu New Delhi: While observing that the Court could not encroach into policy matters of the government, the Delhi High Court has dismissed a public interest writ petition seeking directions to the Centre to make available generic medicines and medical treatment to the public at large at a reasonable cost. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice R.S. Endlaw had earlier this week said that the Centre and...

-The Hindu While India and other countries have been opposing a review of their national contributions to tackle climate change, chairperson of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Dr. R. K. Pachauri is firm that unless there is a process of review in place, the direction the world is taking to tackle climate change will not be clear. A periodic review of targets and achievements is a must, he...

-Vikalp Once again, India is under pressure from the US to revise its patent law. Anyone familiar with the activities of the United States Trade Representatives (USTR) would know that this is nothing new. It has been among the USTR's primary mandates to use trade restrictions in order to persuade (to put it mildly) countries to strengthen their IPR laws. There is, however, a qualitative difference between the actions it has...