-Live Mint High on hype, the budget speech of the Union finance minister today is merely a statement of account. As India’s economy diversifies—with the private sector playing an increasingly important role—this annual feature has assumed much lower salience. Not only have fiscal policies lost the space they enjoyed in earlier years, even major policy announcements are restricted to being mere statements of account. Examples from other arenas include “activism” on...

-Pragativadi The extent of the poverty in southern and northern region of Odisha is still high and remains a matter of concern even as the poverty percentage points reduced to 29.69 per cent.  According to the Odisha Economic Survey, 2011-12 report, even after sixty-four years of independence, Odisha has witnessed wide regional and social disparities in development. All regions have not developed uniformly so far. The annual report, which was circulated in the...

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has criticised UN agencies like the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) for not doing enough to fight hunger and poverty. “Countries, food agencies and donors aren’t working together in a focused and co-ordinated way to provide the help small farmers need, when they need it,” Gates told the governing council of the IFAD in...

-Live Mint The Planning Commission’s decision to not include healthcare in the list of essential entitlements such as education and food comes after an expert group recommended exactly the opposite. The group was to evaluate the role of the state as a healthcare provider, and it came to the unexceptionable conclusion that public health infrastructure should be strengthened to provide better and more affordable healthcare to all Indians. However, the Planning...

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is likely to run into a debate on public health policy after the Planning Commission moved to nix a proposal to include healthcare in the list of public entitlements such as education and food. Central to the proposal—initiated by a high-level expert group (HLEG) headed by K. Srinath Reddy, a leading advocate of preventive cardiology and president of the Public Health Foundation of India—was the...