-The Hindu Business Line At present, panchayats make no contribution to the design of schemes. Their autonomy is negligible. This needs to change Decentralisation has long been recognised as an efficient instrument for promoting economic democracy, and delivering services to meet the needs of people. There are THRee different channels for decentralisation — political, administrative and fiscal. Political decentralisation promotes trust and cooperation between government agencies and citizens. Administrative decentralisation enables authority...

-Scroll.in Medical admissions have been paralysed by the government’s inability to offer a rationale for the income criteria used to define economically weaker sections For nearly two weeks now, hospital services in Delhi have been crippled by a strike by resident doctors over the deadlock in admissions to postgraduate medical courses. On Monday, the police allegedly THRashed and detained protesting doctors, registering a case against them, which prompted their association to announce...

-TheWire.in Millions of school children in India, especially from poor families, dropped out of school over the past two years because of the COVID health emergency. Raghav Paswan, a vegetable vendor from East Delhi has two school-age children, 12-year-old Vinita and nine-year-old Gita, who have not gone to school for the past two years because of the pandemic. Paswan’s meagre income has dropped further during the pandemic, to the point where he could...

-Newsclick.in The poll-bound state ranked the worst in institutional deliveries both in 2014-15 and 2019-20. Lucknow: With less than THRee months left for the Assembly elections, the Yogi Adityanath government has received some less than flattering news with Uttar Pradesh (UP) once again figuring at the bottom of 19 large states and Left-rule Kerala emerging as the state with the best overall health performance for the fourth consecutive year on the fourth...

-Newsclick.in A guaranteed MSP system will also reduce public storage costs/wastage if it is complemented by a universal public distribution system. The year-long protest by farmers and workers compelled the Centre to repeal the THRee contentious farm laws, which were designed to further corporate encroachment in agriculture, on November 29. On December 11, the protest ended but not before the protesters reiterated their demand for a legal guarantee on Minimum Support Price...