-The Indian Express The World Universal Health Coverage Day, observed on December 12, builds on growing global momentum towards introducing universal health coverage (UHC) in national health plans and reinforces the case for including UHC as a prominent sustainable development goal to be adopted by the UN next year. India proposes to implement a programme of national health assurance, which embraces the principles of UHC. It is expected that the government...

-Business Standard The government to set up a 'Swachh Bharat Kosh' to provide tax and fiscal incentives The Centre would spend around Rs 2,00,000 crore over the next five years for the Swachh Bharat Mission, said M Venkaiah Naidu, Union minister for urban development. The minister also said the government would set up a 'Swachh Bharat Kosh' to provide tax and fiscal incentives. The minister said urban India generates about 68.8 million tonnes...

Child sex ratio (CSR) in India has declined from 927 in 2001 to 918 in 2011 (girls per 1,000 boys), according to a new report entitled Missing Girls: Mapping the Adverse Child Sex Ratio in India (Census 2011). Of the total 640 districts in the country, 429 districts have experienced decline in CSR (see the link below).   Of these 429 districts, 26 districts exhibited drastic decline (of 50 points or more),...

-The Times of India PATNA: Even as Bihar is endowed with substantial groundwater resources, a vast section of its population has no easy access to potable water. The government claims to have sunk more than 10 lakh shallow and 2000 deep tubewells in different parts of the state, but they fail to cope up with the ever-increasing demand of the people for domestic and irrigational needs. Experts feel that assured availability of...

-The Hindu Are differences within the middle class, in income, education, and cultural and social capital, so wide as to render moot any ideological or behavioural coherence to this group? The rapid growth of the Indian economy over the past three decades has led to a substantial expansion of India's "middle class". This has triggered a robust debate over who in India actually belongs to the "middle class," its size, composition, and...