-TheWire.in We need to reboot the Aadhaar debate, starting on the right terms: why do we want to create a centralised biometric database of Indian residents? A recent article, ‘Identification simplified, myths busted’, by Piyush Peshwani and Bhuwan Joshi (hereafter, Peshwani & Joshi) makes some questionable claims about the UID project. Peshwani & Joshi’s strategy appears to be to ignore those questions to which they do not have an answer (e.g., that...
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Data Reveals Decline in Access to Information Since BJP Came to Power -Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar
-TheWire.in There appears to be a deliberate effort to restrict the access to information and move away from transparency in governance. New Delhi: Since the Narendra Modi government came to power, access to information through the Right to Information (RTI) Act has diminished greatly, according to the annual report of the Central Information Commission (CIC) for 2014-15. The number of instances where information was denied for reasons other than those permitted under...
More »India Assures the US It Will Not Issue Compulsory Licences on Medicines -Amit Sengupta
-TheWire.in The government appears bent on decisively abandoning the earlier consensus of adherence to public health goals. In what is widely being hailed as an extraordinary victory for the multinational pharmaceutical industry over the Indian government, the US-India Business Council (USIBC), in its submission to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), reports that the Indian government has “privately assured” the industry that it would not use compulsory licences (CLs) for commercial purposes....
More »Jaitley is Carrying Forward a Deeply Flawed Health Insurance Program -Subhashish Bhadra
-TheWire.in The message coming out of finance minister Arun Jaitley’s budget this year is that the rural economy is back at the heart of policy-making. One of the highlights of the budget was the announcement of the ‘Health Protection Scheme’, under which poor households will be provided with an annual cover of Rs. 1 lakh to protect them from health-related financial shocks. This marks a significant expansion of the Rashtriya Swasthya...
More »The Shifting Political Economy of Centrally Sponsored Schemes -Pranay Kotasthane
-TheWire.in Action now shifts to the states which will have the first real opportunity to react to a new, and still evolving fiscal landscape One of the most dynamic features over the last three budgets has been the apparent consolidation of centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) — schemes like MGNREGA and National Health Mission, which are formulated by the Union government on subjects from the State List to encourage states to prioritise on...
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