-Economic and Political Weekly The key to improving the quality of healthcare services in India and reducing costs at the same time can be found by enacting legislation which lays down minimum standards of patient care. In the absence of such standards and the reluctance of health insurance companies to standardise either price or quality, healthcare services continue to be expensive and of doubtful quality. Developing standards of patient care by...

-Business Standard The tribal affairs ministry has drafted revised rules on tribal consent which are now being reviewed by the environment, forests and climate change ministry After approving an ordinance that does away with the need for consent of owners to acquire their land for infrastructure projects and other purposes, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is finalising the dilution of tribal rights over forest land, which will ease and hasten handing...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government may introduce a health cess to fund free health care services and launch seven preventive campaigns to curb illnesses under a draft health policy unveiled today. Some analysts, however, said the draft of the National Health Policy 2015 lacked emphasis on regulating India's private health industry, necessary to curb the high cost of health care. The draft says the government has the "political will" to...

-Business Standard The changes in the ordinance have been made after taking inputs from states suggesting changes to the Act which would make it more industry-friendly. After a failed winter session of Parliament, the government recommended promulgating an ordinance for changes to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. Justifying the use of ordinance, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government had to...

-The Indian Express In a bid to ease the process of acquiring land, the Union Cabinet on Monday recommended the promulgation of an ordinance to amend the Land Acquisiton Act, 2013, by including five new categories of projects that would not require prior consent from affected families as well as Social Impact Assessment (SIA). These include projects related to defence, rural infrastructure and industrial corridors. The sensitive provisions relating to compensation, relief...