-The Hindu For state-sponsored insurance, governments should avoid insurance companies World Bank data, in 2015, showed that nearly 65% of health-care expenditure in India is “Out of Pocket” (OoP). A report by the World Health Organisation has shown that around 3.2% of Indians would fall below the poverty line because of high OoP health expenditure. Thus, a national health insurance scheme like the Ayushman Bharat is welcome. While the principle of insuring a...

-The Hindu The issue today is whether a dishonest system can be managed honestly Allegations of interference in major institutions have been the big news of late. The ongoing fracas in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has got out of hand, with the two top officials in the chain of command accusing each other of corruption. The recent pronouncements in the Supreme Court do not promise an early resolution. The fight against...

-The Hindu Business Line Realising that DeMo pulverised MSMEs, an anxious Centre wants to hurriedly make amends. But loan disbursals may not help The spat between the government and the RBI is primarily in the realm of macroeconomic issues like the size of the reserves the central bank should hold and the methods of monitoring loans that could go bad. Yet, the political intensity of the government’s moves cannot be missed. Apart from...

-The Hindu We won’t allow anyone to cut our trees, say the women of Balarampur village For three generations now, and spanning 40 years, Chaturi Sahu, 70, has been unfailingly sending one male member from her family to patrol the nearby Jhinkargadi forest to ensure that its trees and shrubs are untouched. Year after year, her father-in-law, husband and son, who are part of the foot soldiers of Balarampur, a nondescript village in...

-Scroll.in The PMO has a ‘moral, constitutional and political duty’ to reveal to citizens who are the defaulters and what action has been taken against them, it said. The Central Information Commission has directed the Reserve Bank of India and the Prime Minister’s Office to disclose the list of wilful defaulters as well as a letter on bad loans written by the former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan to the Centre, PTI reported...