-The Hindu   Schools of Delhi Govt., MCD, NDMC, Delhi Cantonment and anganwadis to be administered tablets today Two months into the Chacha Nehru Sehat Yojna (CNSY) that seeks to provide free and comprehensive health services to all school-going children in Delhi, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Monday launched a major State-wide de-worming campaign by administering chewable tablets to 50 school-going children at her residence. Since soil-transmitted worms are the commonest infestations in pre-school...

-The Times of India Making a strong pitch for raising diesel prices, Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council chairman C Rangarajan on Wednesday said there was a need to revise prices to reduce the huge subsidy burden and bring down the fiscal deficit.  While releasing the economic review for 2011-12, Rangarajan said it was earlier agreed to deregulate diesel prices but the decision was never implemented. He advocated a phased deregulation of diesel...

Food price inflation, and inflation in general, has become less of an issue. But it isn’t an issue that will go away. Give it till June and inflation is likely to inch up again. Competition is a good antidote against price increases. It ensures efficiency and reduces price volatility. Logically, food price inflation should trigger and stimulate agricultural reform, so there is competition and supply-side changes can occur. But in...

The irrationality and waste in energy subsidies in India has been a perennial theme in analysis of the Indian economy and in reform prescriptions. Progress has, however, turned out to be elusive in the face of ground realities and feasible politics.  The power ministry, after struggling for over a decade through repeated exhortations, had the satisfaction of getting a resolution in a Chief Ministers Conference in 2001 that free supply of...

Discovery of a deadly form of TB in a Mumbai hospital  underscores mismanagement In December last, when doctors at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai raised the alarm over a deadly form of tuberculosis, the Union health ministry was quick to refute the claim. In its press release on January 17, the ministry said the term “totally drug resistant TB” is “misleading”; it is neither recognised by the national programme for TB control...