-The Hindu   The High Level Expert Group of the Planning Commission on Universal Health Coverage for India has laid out a clear road map: it is to provide access to affordable, accountable, and appropriate health services for all citizens in a meaningful time frame. Free India adopted the goal of preventive and curative care for all, as recommended by the Bhore Committee in 1946. But it faltered and failed to raise...

The annual report of the International Institute for Labour Studies projects a grim future for employment prospects. WITH the United States and much of Europe grappling with the slowdown in their economies and the resultant social unrest, the publication of the World of Work Report 2011: Making Markets Work for Jobs could not have come at a more opportune moment. Brought out by the International Institute for Labour Studies, which was...

Child malnutrition in Gulbarga and Bijapur districts is a blot on Karnataka's image. Ba Ba Basavanna Anganwadi Hogona Avarekaalu Tinnona Ah, Aaa, Ee, Eee, Bariyona Mane Kadege Hogona (Come, Come, Basavanna Let's go to the anganwadi Let us eat beans And write A, B, C, D, And head towards home.) As Savitri Nimbad sings this ditty, the more than 20 children seated in a circle around her repeat each line in shrill voices. Almost all of them are between three and...

The claim that the Unique Identification project will facilitate the delivery of basic health services is dishonest. AMONG the many reasons cited for India to proceed with the Unique Identification (UID) project – that it will facilitate delivery of basic services, that it will plug leakages in public expenditure, that it will speed up achievement of targets in social sector schemes, and so on – the most specious is perhaps the...

Government proposes to provide basic insurance coverage to an estimated 43 crore unorganized workers Furthering the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s objective of inclusive growth, the National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi will discuss ways of bringing India’s unorganized workers under the social security net in its meeting on 29 November. A new NAC working group on social security is working on draft recommendations that will seek to...