-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court has asked the ministries of social justice and health and family welfare to respond to a plea to set up homes for senior citizens across the country because "over-ambitious" children were increasingly neglecting their aged parents. Justices Madan B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit, however, refrained from issuing notices to the Centre, states and Union territories on three other pleas: a national commission for senior citizens,...

-Hindustan Times Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's claims of already having achieved an economic turnaround, made in his budget speech, evoke suspicion. Inflation is certainly down and so is the current account deficit, but that has almost entirely to do with the crash in international crude oil prices, which have fallen from $110 per barrel in June 2014 to around $57 per barrel currently. In fact, rather than passing on the full...

-Economic and Political Weekly Since independence, India's national health policies have been aspirational but the end results have been limited. The National Health Policy 2015, which is in the process of being finalised, should, in place of the earlier "broadband" approach, adopt a "narrow focus" on primary healthcare through the National Rural Health Mission. The latter has focused on primary healthcare and has shown visible results. A slew of suggestions as...

-Economic and Political Weekly The National Sample Survey Office's survey of consumption expenditure is woefully inadequate for estimating the number of food-insecure households in India. Future surveys of NSSO need to collect information on the four pillars of food security: availability, access, nutritional adequacy/utilisation and stability. The Comprehensive Nutrition Survey in Maharashtra is an example of such a survey and appears to do a decent job of capturing the different elements...

-The Hindu Perceptions of public safety in India are not driven by urbanisation per se; rather, these are likely driven by the infrastructure and amenities associated with the largest cities in India One of the most important functions of a modern state is to provide for basic law and order. Indeed, this idea emerges from some of the early foundational tracts on state authority, especially the work of sociologist Max Weber, who...