-The Hindu It has long been argued that government spending on health should increase to 2.5 per cent of GDP. National Health Accounts (NHA) monitors the flow of resources in a country’s health system and provides detailed data on health finances. The NHA estimates for India for the financial year 2013-14 were published earlier this week, after a long void of almost a decade. The previous estimates were for the year 2004-05. In...

-The Indian Express Farm incomes may not revive despite good monsoon. There are new challenges for policymakers. India’s per capita calorie demand has been falling for at least the last 30 years. Most people do a double-take when they hear that. One can’t debate the fact much: National Sample Surveys every five to seven years have documented this. What we can debate are the reasons behind this: In their 2009 paper Angus...

-The Hindu Jaipur: Calling upon BRICS countries to strengthen “cooperative mechanisms”, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Saturday said a united front would help in the successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Much of India’s development agenda was mirrored in the SDGs, Ms. Mahajan said. Inaugurating the first meeting of the BRICS Women Parliamentarians’ Forum at the Rajasthan Assembly here, Ms. Mahajan said while India had chosen the path of...

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across places. For example, the...

-Livemint.com Overall foodgrain output, however, rose marginally to 252.22 mt in FY16, farm ministry’s advance estimates show New Delhi: The crippling drought over the past year failed to impact India’s overall foodgrain production but led to the lowest production of pulses in six years, showed the fourth advance estimates released by the agriculture ministry on Tuesday. In fact, according to the ministry, foodgrain production rose marginally—from 252.02 million tonnes (mt) in 2014-15 to 252.22...