-DNA The draft National Policy on Women is a progressive document advocating legislative changes and gendered approaches. But will other ministries comply? The draft National Policy on Women, released by ministry of women and child development (WCD), is a progressive document in tune with the times but the challenge will be to bridge the gap between policy and implementation. There is considerable emphasis on the conditions of single women, migrants and the...

-The Hindu Intellectual property accelerates innovation in certain technology sectors, but it impedes innovation in others. The biggest flaw of the new policy is that it does not acknowledge this. Intellectual property (IP) regimes suffer a classic paradox. While they attempt to encourage innovation and creativity, they have themselves been shielded from innovation experimentation. For some years now, India has been attempting to break this mould and craft a regime to suit...

-Hindustan Times India has the best and the worst medical education in the world, according to a review of the world’s largest database of peer-reviewed literature. Four medical colleges in India are among the top 10 global institutions that published the most research between 2004 and 2014, while around 60% of the country’s 579 medical institutions have published no research in a decade. Only 25 (4.3%) institutions published more than 100 papers a...

-The Hindu Business Line The priority for this government is to promote the medical care market, not ensure universal healthcare for the majority Those at the helm of policymaking in the country have been, for some time, strongly advocating austerity as the principle for public expenditure policies, particularly for the social sectors. Arvind Panagariya, the vice-chairperson of the NITI Aayog, suggests that “for just three-quarters of a per cent of the GDP”, 0.76...

-Hindustan Times Barmer (Rajasthan): The last time clouds of despair descended on Trimohi, a hamlet in Rajasthan’s Barmer district about half a kilometre from the Pakistan border, was during the 1971 war. This time, the pain is a lot more personal. Delta Meghwal, 17, the first Dalit girl from the village to pursue higher education, was found dead in a water tank of the Jain Adarsh Teachers’ Training Institute for Girls in...