-Frontline Kerala is facing a situation where health care costs are leading more and more people, not just low-income families, to financial distress. KERALA is once again drawing attention to itself, this time for a persistent trend of a large number of households being pushed into financial ruin because of the expenses incurred for medical care. Several studies have now found evidence for the many facets of this worrying development in a...

-Economic and Political Weekly Since independence, India's national health policies have been aspirational but the end results have been limited. The National Health Policy 2015, which is in the process of being finalised, should, in place of the earlier "broadband" approach, adopt a "narrow focus" on primary healthcare through the National Rural Health Mission. The latter has focused on primary healthcare and has shown visible results. A slew of suggestions as...

-The Hindu The failure of successive governments in India, especially those in States that have the highest mortality rates among children younger than five years, to address the critical issue of training health-care providers in rural areas to correctly diagnose and treat children suffering from diarrhoea and pneumonia, has had tragic consequences. These ailments account for the maximum number of under-5 mortality incidence in the country. That the poor management...

-The Hindu Chennai: The reason why a large number of children under the age of five years die of diarrhoea and pneumonia, generally in rural India and especially in Bihar, has become clear. Diarrhoea and pneumonia are the biggest killer diseases in children in India. With 55 per 1,000 live births, Bihar has the highest infant mortality rate in the country. But 340 health care providers in rural Bihar rarely practice what...

-The Hindu Occupational and geographic mobility across the region are bridging income and consumption-related disparities, says the World Bank report, ‘Addressing Inequality in South Asia'. The findings accordingly underscore the role of urbanisation and private sector participation as being critical to mitigating socio-economic disadvantages. Inequality should be understood in terms of monetary and non-monetary dimensions of well-being, contends the report. The share of the poorest 40 per cent of households...