-DNA India is expected to bear the brunt of $160 billion trade-distorting farm subsidies provided by developed nations like the US At a time when angry farmer protests seeking an increase in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all crops is on an upswing, India faces an uphill task to protect its food procurement operations at the forthcoming Buenos Aires Ministerial of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) from December 10-13. At...

-Govenance Now There is need for timely intervention to prevent malnutrition in tribal children She is tall, skinny and dark-complexioned. She sports a tattoo of lines and dots on her forehead, as if displaying a hieroglyphic text. Her neck is laden with beaded jewellery and a thick, rusted iron chain while the ears are pierced at two spots. The white sari draped till her knees contrasts with green and red glass bangles....

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Most households covered by government-funded health insurance have to use personal funds to pay for hospitalisation, a study has suggested, iterating concerns about the wisdom of deploying public-funded insurance schemes to seek universal health coverage in India. The study, designed to determine how well government-funded health insurance protects households from health expenditure, has found that 66 per cent of such households who sought healthcare in public hospitals and...

-Down to Earth Jean Dreze on why he prefers a solidarity society, rather than a welfare state * Are you actually an advocate of the welfare state? Ideally, I would prefer to think in terms of a solidarity society rather than welfare state, for two reasons. First, private non-profit institutions can play a very useful role in the social sector. In many countries, some of the best schools and health centres are run...

-Livemint.com The recent decline in the labour force participation rate should be a matter of deep concern for the Indian economy It has been a year since Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised the country with the demonetisation announcement. Numerous commentators had criticized the move at the time for a variety of reasons, the most prominent among these being: (a) demonetisation was the wrong instrument for the intended objective of eliminating black money...