India’s public health system has become dysfunctional. There is no reason at all why vector-borne and other infectious diseases should recur with predictable regularity after every monsoon season. Government, especially state and local governments, must take primary responsibility for this malaise. Equally, civil society. A combination of governmental negligence and public apathy contributes to the unacceptably high incidence of diseases like dengue, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis, swine flu, conjunctivitis (eye flu)...

Bihar's programme of filing RTI applications through a call center is a novel one. The question is whether the model is effiicient enough to be replicated in other states like Karnataka. If you are in Bihar, you can get electronic goods repaired, phone numbers, buy things through call centres — and also file an RTI application. Zafar Hassan has filed two applications in the past two years through call centres,...

Nationwide discussions and intelligentsia offering solutions to clear the rot in the public distribution system appears to have drawn a naught in Uttar Pradesh. In March, officials from the department of food and civil supplies had acknowledged `serious flaw' in the government policy, and said that the process of issuing ration cards in the state was `too liberal'. Six months on, not much has changed in the state. According to...

KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...

KEY TRENDS   • Section 105 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which provides for excluding 13 Central legislation, including Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885, Atomic Energy Act, 1962, Railway Act 1989, National Highways Act 1956 and Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978, from its purview, has been amended for payment of compensation with rigours $ • The amendments have now...