-Down to Earth More than 70 per cent of ailments were treated at private facilities in both rural and urban areas Data published by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) seems to confirm the concerns that public health experts have been raising so far. The report shows a steady decline in people availing health services at government-run centres and a corresponding increase in the use of private healthcare. Data for the report—Key Indicators...

-Down to Earth New WHO-UNICEF report warns that lack of progress on sanitation would undermine gains from access to safe drinking water India has achieved very little in the last 20 years when it comes to eradicating open defecation. Also, India is one among two countries (along with Namibia) which have the largest gap between their richest and poorest people in terms of facilities for open defecation. These facts were highlighted in a...

-Down to Earth As per government documents, the current year’s progress report on MGNREGA shows that around 33,000 structures have been completed and work on around 1.1 million structures is still on After the Centre’s ambitious target of constructing one toilet per second to spruce up rural development failed, it has come up with another 'impractical' target. Now, the NDA government plans to construct 42 water harvesting structures every hour under the...

-The Hindu   Far from being ‘useless’, the MNREGA helps the impoverished and resilient poor earn a decent living. Famously on the floor of Parliament, Prime Minister Modi dismissed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) as a ‘living monument’ of the previous governments’ failures, condemning millions of impoverished people to survive by ‘digging ditches’. This spring near Bhim in Rajasthan, I had the rare experience of labouring on an MGNREGA site....

-Down to Earth They feel that certain provisions in these agreements cater 'to the business interests of pharmaceutical monopolies', which are making medicines expensive United Nations (UN) experts have raised concern over human rights violation as a result of the ongoing Free Trade Agreement (FTA), including the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). The US-led ongoing TPPA negotiation with Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei, is in the last leg. During...