-Livemint.com India needs to find better value for money in the health sector According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are three goals a country’s health system must aim for: to improve health, to be responsive to legitimate demands of the population and to ensure no one is at risk of serious financial losses because of ill health. Given this framework, the fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) released last week...

-Economic and Political Weekly Agriculture cannot be revived without a different approach to water, soil, crops and research. For the second year in succession, rainfall in the monsoon season has been less than normal. As many as 302 out of the 640 districts in the country have been declared drought-hit and the impact of the drought is the severest in nine major states of south, central and east India. It is striking...

-IndiaSpend.com India accounts for 27% of the world's neonatal deaths and 21% of all child deaths Here are some health statistics for Indian children five years or younger: 38.7% are stunted (below normal height for the age), 19.8% are wasted (underweight and short) and 42.4% are underweight. This in a country that boasts a 40-year-old national child-health programme – now among the world’s largest – and increased spending on child health 200% over...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: The World Health Organization says close to one in seven people in India are at risk of contracting malaria. In a report that should worry public health officials, it says India, along with Ethiopia, Pakistan and Indonesia accounts for 80% of all malaria cases worldwide, but the country allocates the lowest funding for malaria control in the world. The report, based on the data collated by the National...

-Business Standard The government is holding talks with states providing cashless health insurance, such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat After providing life cover and accident cover, the government is now working on a universal health insurance plan. To begin with, it will provide a seamless solution to the existing cashless health schemes in states by integrating those with the Centre's direct benefits transfer (DBT) platform. Later, these would be scaled up. "Encouraged...