The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...

Even as the Centre prepares to implement its proposed national Food Security Act, States have expressed their unhappiness about the contours of the Bill, particularly the cap on the number of Beneficiaries which will automatically reduce their allocation of subsidised foodgrains. Requirement of funds, more foodgrains for distribution under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), and paucity of storage capacity was a common refrain during the two-day conference of State Food...

-The Hindu Measures taken by the Rajasthan Government for ensuring food security to vulnerable sections were highlighted at a conference of Agriculture and Food Ministers of States in New Delhi on Wednesday. A special reference to the reforms planned in the Public Distribution System was made on the occasion. Addressing the conference, Rajasthan Food and Civil Supplies Minister Parsadilal Meena said his department would shortly start distribution of kerosene to below poverty line...

-The Hindu   Prompt payment through bank; corruption eliminated; in fact, some workers have a saving They are all manual workers earning Rs. 100 daily under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and some of them have a bank balance — no matter how small — made possible because of their financial inclusion and the introduction of technology that links their accounts biometrically through the Aadhaar number. As the new system ensures...

For a change, Mangal Bedia did not board a crammed bus today and travel 15km to withdraw his old-age pension from a bank. The 70-year-old from Dohakatu village in Ramgarh district, along with 100-odd fellow elders, became the first citizens to access old-age pension by using their Aadhaar numbers with handheld ATMs on the doorstep. The banking service reached their village, thanks to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Until today,...