-The Tribune Shimla: A large number of ration cardholders have been deprived of subsidised ration due to the closure of fair price shops ever since the rollout of the GST. In Shimla, shutters on more than 50 per cent shops under the public distribution system (PDS) are down with a notice that the sale had been closed due to the GST. Consumers are taking rounds of the PDS shops, but no ration is...

-Hindustan Times It’s a paradoxical fact. Families become smaller as better nutrition, vaccination and healthcare ensure couples lose fewer children to malnutrition and infections, such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, sepsis and tuberculosis India’s most comprehensive report card on health released earlier this year shows India’s total fertility rate (TFR) has dropped from an average of 2.7 children per women in 2006 to 2.2 a decade later. Around two in three states that are...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Modi government's efforts to cap the price of cardiac stents exposed the nexus between stent companies and hospitals in looting the public by overcharging them. But no action has been taken against either companies or hospitals. None of them paid penalties or faced charges for colluding to cheat the public. Contrast this with the US government which has, over the years, fined the three biggest...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: The government is in the process of drafting a clause that makes it mandatory for hospitals empanelled under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) to publicly display the number of Caesarean section and normal deliveries they have carried out. The move comes after the Centre received a citizen's' petition in February which drew attention to the alarming rise in the number of C-sections in India, mainly...

-The Hindu The discourse must move beyond a top-down approach to listen to the people and formulate best insurance practices Much ink has been spilled in documenting the inadequacy of budgetary allocations for public health insurance, specifically for the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the world’s largest publicly-funded health insurance (PFHI) scheme. Though the 2017-18 budget allocation has marginally increased from last year’s revised estimates, it has declined relative to last year’s...