-The Hindu The primary health-care system in India, intended to enable affordable health care, has not delivered on its promise. Rural, public health facilities are unable to attract, retain and ensure the regular presence of trained medical professionals. Health centres and hospitals in the public sector have proliferated but they are distributed inequitably. India may have one government hospital bed for every 1,833 people, but the reality is that while in...
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A Union budget for the village -Himanshu
-The Indian Express Government must address the stress in the rural economy, seen in falling wages and incomes, which could reverse recent progress in rural areas Last year in February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had exhorted voters to vote for his party in the Delhi assembly election, claiming that his victory in the general election had brought luck to the country. Unfortunately, the voters of urban Delhi were not convinced and...
More »Budget expectations for rural sector
Amidst uncertainty over India's performance in terms of agricultural production and livelihood security of rural population, the Union Budget of 2016-17 will be presented by Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley on 29 February. Given the extent of drought in more than 10 states of India during 2015-16, it is expected that the NDA Government will allocate more resources for rejuvenating the rural sector. Since the country has seen two years of...
More »A more effective antidote to poverty? -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express The average annual MGNREGA spend in TN, for instance, is two-and-a-half times more than that for Bihar. Is the PMGSY more pro-poor compared to MGNREGA? Going by where monies under the two programmes get spent, the answer could well be yes. In a recent analysis, NC Saxena, Distinguished Fellow of the policy think-tank Skoch Development Foundation and former Secretary, Planning Commission, has noted how the expenditure on MGNREGA is...
More »Jats think they’re backward; there’s a reason -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express Agriculture doesn’t pay that much, land is no longer the source of power it once was, and the community has failed to keep up with a changing India. The Jats conform fully to the idea of a ‘dominant caste’, a term the eminent sociologist M N Srinivas used to refer to any community that is both numerically strong in a village or local area, as well as wields...
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