At its core, healthcare is essentially a public service. So its demand and supply cannot be left to the market and can't be limited to care rendered or financed by public expenditure, but must also include incentives and disincentives for care paid for by citizens. India's healthcare challenges are aggravated by lack of overall coverage of health insurance services. Although the government and some private employers provide health protection, the...

India will not be a nation until the aam aadmi's “progress is based not on who he knows but on what he knows,” Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi told cheering delegates at the 83rd plenary session at Burari here on Sunday. On a day when his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi declared war on corruption, Mr. Gandhi's devastating critique of the “system” took the audience by surprise. “Corruption is...

The Kashmir Himalayan region has been a hotly disputed area for decades, with both India and Pakistan laying claim to it. But some Kashmiris see their homeland not only as an area of conflict, but also as a land of agricultural opportunity. Indian-controlled Kashmir is a predominately agricultural region that produces fruit, grains and vegetables for the Indian market. More than 60 percent of the country's apples are grown there. Khuram Mir...

Hollywood filmmaker James Cameron was all ears when Anand Kumar, who founded Bihar's Super 30 free coaching centre for students, narrated the real life stories of hope that his institute has generated year after year. "Cameron told me it was amazing to listen to my real life stories of hope. He was so impressed that he hinted at using such stories with people across the world," Kumar, who shared the...

South Asia in general and India in particular have the dubious distinction of standing out for wrong reasons every time a new global poverty report is released. We not only have the largest number of underweight children, a very high maternal mortality rate and the world’s highest number of out of school children but we also top the global malnutrition chart. (See links below for more details)  However the 2011 United...