-The Times of India In a move that has angered the health ministry, the Planning Commission has asked for reversal of the long-standing public health policy from the 12th plan onwards ending governments' dominant role in providing health services and transiting to greater privatization of the health sector, something along the lines of the 'managed care' system which is followed in the US and Mexico. The health ministry has taken a tough...

-The Hindustan Times The government has shielded its officials from harassment by anti-corruption sleuths but left the Private Sector at the mercy of the police under a proposed anti-bribery law targeting the Private Sector. The home ministry’s proposed amendment to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) criminalises bribery amongst individuals, trusts and firms and prescribes a maximum jail of 7 years for the guilty. But it gives the police a free hand to...

-The Economic Times With a weak monsoon, farmers and farm labour, agri-investors and policy makers, everyone is looking up in the sky and praying for more water to pour. Farm analysts are debating whether this will lead to a drop of 16 million tonnes of foodgrain, as it happened in 2009, or 38 million tonnes, as it did in 2002. NCAER is projecting 20 million tonnes drop in grain production in...

-Live Mint State’s role to diminish from that of provider to manager, making way for private companies, individual practitioners The government is set to relinquish its role as a provider of primary healthcare, making way for private companies and individual medical practitioners to take the lead in offering clinical services, and focus on preventive interventions such as immunization and HIV testing. The move is in line with the government’s approach of outsourcing its...

-The Indian Express The National Sample Survey has found a 17 per cent improvement in expenditure patterns of the poorest decile of India’s urban population in two years till 2011-12. “The poorest 10 per cent of India’s rural population had an average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) of Rs 503.49 per month,” the survey found. In the last round of the NSS for 2009-10, the poorest 10 per cent of the rural...