A recent study published in the prestigious science journal 'PLOS One' (August 2014) shows that Central programmes like National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), and state-level initiatives like Yeshasvini health insurance scheme (Karnataka), Vajpayee Aarogyasri health insurance scheme (Karnataka), Rajiv Aarogyasri scheme (Andhra Pradesh), Chief Minister's Insurance Scheme for Life Saving Treatment (Tamil Nadu) etc. did little to reduce the financial burden arising out of...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's poorest and socially underprivileged people seem to have benefited the least from a set of government programmes launched over the past decade to reduce personal expenses on health care, research suggests. A team of health economists has found that the financial burden of health care on India's poorest 20 per cent, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims has outpaced that on the richest 20 per cent and...

-Economic and Political Weekly How will the amendments to the Factories Act affect women workers? How do women view the "protections" and night work? Apoorva Kaiwar (akaiwar@yahoo.co.in) is a labour lawyer and consultant on issues of gender and labour. The central government is proposing to amend several labour laws. The process of amending them has been underway since 2011, which means that it is not only the new dispensation that is eager to...

-The Hindu India must devise a demographic policy to separately meet the requirements of the young, middle-aged and elderly The Census data released recently show that unemployment in the country, especially among the youth, is very high, averaging nearly 20 per cent for the age group of 15-24 years. In some States like Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, the unemployment rate is above 25 per...

-Women's Feature Service In 2000, countries around the world pledged to fulfill the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight time-bound targets to eradicate poverty and hunger and uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity. India, which is ranked 63 out of 81 countries on the Global Hunger Index, has been working towards finding workable solutions to a problem that especially affects children between 0 to 5...