-The Telegraph New Delhi: Free health-care services during childbirth remain a pipe dream for most of India's poor, whether it relates to diagnostic tests, medicines, transport or even food, despite the Union health ministry launching a "free entitlements" programme five years ago. The families of most women who seek childbirth in government hospitals are forced to pay for supposedly "free" services, at times experiencing catastrophic expenditures likely to accentuate their poverty, two...

Although public goods are meant for everyone to enable living life with human dignity, certain groups are systematically deprived to access them, says a new report from the Centre for Equity Studies -- a NGO based in Delhi. Put differently, not all sections of the society are able to access or enjoy public goods and services on an equal footing, despite social justice being one of the key provisions of...

-The Hindu By asking five prominent private hospitals in the national capital to deposit nearly Rs.600 crore to compensate for their failure to treat poor patients, the Delhi government has drawn attention to the social obligation of healthcare providers in the corporate sector as well as the need for timely enforcement of applicable regulations. According to the Kejriwal government, trusts and registered societies to which public land was allotted to establish...

-The Hindu In an unusual sequence of events around a research paper that claimed air pollution was responsible for reducing life expectancy in Delhi by six years, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar not only condemned the study but said in an e-mailed public statement that “the timing of the release of the study seems to be motivated as it has been done at a time when Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is...

-Business Standard A recent report suggests different ways to eliminate poverty and argues that accelerated growth is the most suitable medicine to reduce incidence of poverty Adding some and modifying some others is how the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is planning to go about its welfare programmes in the coming days. While the Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) is likely to be extended to some private schools, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...