-Economic and Political Weekly The key to improving the quality of healthcare services in India and reducing costs at the same time can be found by enacting legislation which lays down minimum standards of patient care. In the absence of such standards and the reluctance of health insurance companies to standardise either price or quality, healthcare services continue to be expensive and of doubtful quality. Developing standards of patient care by...

-The Hindu Business Line The rural job guarantee scheme is threatened by the undermining of its driving force, demand-driven work Is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) suffering a midlife crisis or are we staring at its death? From a budget of ₹401 billion in 2010-11, it has plummeted to ₹330 billion in 2013-14. Given the much higher wages currently offered to workers, it has taken a serious hit. The...

-The Hindu While India and other countries have been opposing a review of their national contributions to tackle climate change, chairperson of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Dr. R. K. Pachauri is firm that unless there is a process of review in place, the direction the world is taking to tackle climate change will not be clear. A periodic review of targets and achievements is a must, he...

-The Hindustan Times Jaipur (Rajasthan): The state government has decided to follow the Madhya Pradesh model of sustainable livelihood by convergence in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). This was decided at a review meeting of panchayati raj (PR) and rural development (RD) departments by the chief minister. "We saw their presentation in the meeting of Union minister Birendra Singh on December 16 in Jaipur in which RD heads...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Rural Development Year end Review -2014-15 The Ministry of Rural Development is likely to introduce Mobile Monitoring System for effective implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, MGNREGA. The Monitoring System will be introduced on a pilot basis to allow real time monitoring of all works, workers attendance and work site measurement. The move is likely to plug leakages in the rural job scheme. Moreover,...