-The Hindu   As TRAI prepares to regulate ownership of news organisations to ensure pluralism, big media houses fear shrinking profits and state control by proxy Rahul Khullar, the straight-talking chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), listened attentively to the senior management executive of Bennett Coleman and Co. Limited, one of India's largest media conglomerates. The latter disagreed with the premise of the discussion - that there was a "problem,"...

-Frontline The Central government's proposal to hand over the supply of supplementary nutrition to NGOs in the name of "community participation" is surely an invitation for private profiteering on the back of this supposedly public scheme. ENSURING safe and healthy conditions for the reproduction of the population is obviously the most fundamental requirement of any society. So the progress of a society can be determined (and indeed is routinely judged) by the...

-The Telegraph A physicians-led health group has expressed fears that the Centre is straying from plans to provide free essential medicines at public hospitals and to introduce universal healthcare services through tax revenues. The non-government Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA) has said the plans for free essential medicines and an expansion and strengthening of public health services in rural areas appear to be in jeopardy because of inadequate health budget allocations. In a letter...

-Live Mint Some commentators dismiss the seriousness of India's nutritional crisis as it fails to account for genetic differences With one in two children malnourished in India, child malnutrition is considered to be among the biggest challenges facing the country. But are these figures highly exaggerated? The answer is a resounding yes, according to Columbia University economist Arvind Panagariya, who believes that the international standards used to measure nutritional attainments of...

-Live Mint Some commentators have gone so far as to dismiss India's nutritional crisis as a ‘hoax' In a recent article, Columbia University economist Arvind Panagariya argued that India need not be ashamed of its malnutrition statistics as they are likely to be exaggerated. Panagariya's contention that international standards used to measure nutritional attainments of Indian children are inappropriate, as they fail to account for "genetic differences" seem to have found favour...