-The Hindu Ignoring hunger and malnutrition will have significant costs to any country's development. Nutrition improvement has both intrinsic and instrumental value One of the disappointments in the post-reform period in India has been the slow progress in the reduction of malnutrition, especially with reference to the underweight among children. In fact, the rate of change in the percentage of underweight children has been negligible in the period 1998-99 to 2005-06; the...

-The Hindu Tackling TB requires both strengthening the public sector and engaging the private sector Over 60 per cent of all Indians seek health care in the private sector according to India's last National Family Health Survey. This undoubtedly makes the private sector the largest provider of health services in India. The government health system, though vast and well-intentioned, continues to be overburdened with multiple challenges including long waiting hours, an ageing...

-The Hindu A systemic reform of the health sector in order to meet the key objectives of equity, efficiency and quality is long overdue. In this, the Central and State governments need to make interventions intelligently, decisively and strategically so that the poor reap the benefits How does Prime Minister Narendra Modi's focus on population, health and subjects like public hygiene, the facilitation of toilets and ensuring preventive health through yoga fit...

-Tehelka Despite the serious toll it takes on women's health, female sterilisation remains the most prevalent form of contraception in India. While memories of the 21 months of Emergency in 1975-77, imposed by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, survives even today in the minds of Indian men as the fear of forced sterilisation, the country's population control policies have shifted over the years since then to target the politically less...

-The Hindu Business Line On the day a ₹ 1,000/month minimum pension scheme was launched in India, an ILO policy paper report said that close to half (48 per cent) of people over pensionable age in the world do not receive a pension. And those who do get a pension, do not receive an adequate amount to cover for their health, and old age-related problems. "As a result, the majority of the...