-The Times of India It was in 2012 that the Centre first promised to provide free drugs in public health facilities. The first budgetary provision was made in 2013. Last year, the promise was crystallized to providing 348 essential drugs free. This was later whittled down to just 50 drugs. And now, the entire idea of a central scheme for free drug distribution has been given a quiet burial. Joint secretary (policy)...
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Centre extends food law deadline by 6 months
-PTI Jaipur: The Centre has given six months' more time to the states for rolling out the National Food Security Act (NFSA), Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Friday. The deadline, which has already been extended twice for implementing the food law, was ending on April 4. Only 11 states and Union Territories have so far implemented the National Food Security Act, which was passed by Parliament in September 2013. "The central...
More »Congress gets into survey mode in Rajasthan -Smita Gupta
-The Hindu Aim of the exercise is to map damage due to closure of 17,000 govt. schools. Eight months after the BJP government closed down 17,000 government schools in Rajasthan, dramatically pushing up the dropout rate largely among marginal communities, the Congress has decided to undertake a survey, starting in Jaipur's Amber block, to map the damage. Once the audit is over, a campaign to force the State government to reopen the closed...
More »Failing the farmer -CP Chandrasekhar
-Frontline Outcomes of the patterns of growth induced by neoliberal economic reforms have increased the disproportionality between agricultural and non-agricultural growth, and with costs rising and prices not keeping pace, agriculture is becoming increasingly unviable. FARMERS across northern and central India-in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and elsewhere-are distressed. Unseasonal rains have damaged their standing crop and help from the government has been meagre and slow in coming. This, however, is...
More »In true colours -Sudhir Kumar Panwar
-Frontline The BJP-led NDA government has, in the two Budgets it has presented so far, revealed itself to be very different from the pro-farmer image that its leading election campaigner and now Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, projected. THE Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha election states: "Agriculture is the engine of India's economic growth and the largest employer, and BJP commits highest priority to agriculture growth, increases in...
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