The poor health indices and health care in rural India have always been met with lofty ideals sans action; they demand urgent and radical solutions.  The recent proposal to introduce a new medical course, Bachelor of Rural Health Care, has been met with resistance from many sections of the medical fraternity. Its opponents argue that it will result in second-class health care for rural India and increase the rural-urban divide....

THE sharp criticism of the State administration by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes for perceived inadequacies in enforcing the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and in implementing various welfare measures aimed at empowering Dalits has put the Tamil Nadu government in a tight spot. Despite denials by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, who is also a top leader of the United Progressive Alliance which is...

WELL before Budget 2010-11 was presented, inflation had emerged as the principal economic problem in the country. With food-price inflation running at close to 20 per cent, even the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre had been forced to recognise it as a problem that deserved as much attention as the objective of achieving a 9 or 10 per cent rate of growth, if not more. In fact,...

The economist and political commentator who was appointed to a four-member team of the UN to recommend reforms to the global financial system critiques Budget 2010 Economist and political commentator Prabhat Patnaik, currently vice-chair of the Kerala Planning Board, is a strong critic of the government’s economic policies. In 2008, Patnaik, who has taught at JNU since the 1970s, was appointed to a four-member team of the UN to recommend...

HRD ministry and states can be happy as 13th Finance Commission has been the most generous for elementary education allocating Rs 24,068 crore for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to all the states for the next five years. It has also fully accepted the demand for grants made by the HRD ministry. Even though funding for Right to Education has not been worked out, the Commission recognises that more funds will be...