-Economic and Political Weekly For India to improve the existing government health system is far less complex than expanding health insurance. International experience shows the difficulties of regulating an insurance-based system to keep costs down and assure quality. Monica Das Gupta (mdasgupta@gmail.com) teaches at the University of Maryland, College Park, the US. V R Muraleedharan (vrm@iitm. ac.in) teaches at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Please click here to download. ...

A recent study published in the prestigious science journal 'PLOS One' (August 2014) shows that Central programmes like National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), and state-level initiatives like Yeshasvini health insurance scheme (Karnataka), Vajpayee Aarogyasri health insurance scheme (Karnataka), Rajiv Aarogyasri scheme (Andhra Pradesh), Chief Minister's Insurance Scheme for Life Saving Treatment (Tamil Nadu) etc. did little to reduce the financial burden arising out of...

-The Hindu India must devise a demographic policy to separately meet the requirements of the young, middle-aged and elderly The Census data released recently show that unemployment in the country, especially among the youth, is very high, averaging nearly 20 per cent for the age group of 15-24 years. In some States like Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, the unemployment rate is above 25 per...

-Down to Earth Vasundhara Raje government adopts targeted approach for the scheme which can now be availed only by beneficiaries of food security programme The Rajasthan government has downsized its much-acclaimed free medicines and diagnostics scheme, the Mukhyamantri Nishulk Dava Yojna, launched in 2011. The Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government has adopted a "targeted approach" in implementing the scheme which was a "universal" one when launched by the previous Congress-led UPA regime. Public...

-Economic and Political Weekly   The emphasis on use of digital technologies to bridge the "rural-urban gap" in the union budget is limited to high talk and minimal allocations. The need for a more comprehensive and peoples' participation-oriented rural action plan should have been the focus while setting sectoral allocations, but that is not to be in this mid-year budget. Vipul Mudgal (vipulmudgal@gmail.com) heads the Inclusive Media for Change project at the Centre...