-TheWire.in Why has India chosen the path of expanding medical insurance instead of a more comprehensive approach to health? The concern with rising inequities in Access to medical care, rising out-of-pocket expenditures and unmet treatment needs have been addressed with yet another targeted medical insurance scheme for poor households. The idea of a targeted medical insurance is not new. Several southern states like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka had introduced such schemes many...

-TheWire.in While the government claims it “will bring healthcare system closer to the homes of people,” it hopes to do this through the private sector, not by strengthening the public health system. Health is being hailed as the biggest winner of Budget 2018, but a cursory look at the numbers shows that there is nothing to celebrate as far as the health budget is concerned. In fact, the Budget this year once...

-Scroll.in The agriculture budget grew more than the actual budget in 2018-19. Some of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s promises to the agriculture sector in his Budget speech may be a little difficult to keep. Jaitley on Thursday announced two funds together valued at Rs 10,000 crore to develop infrastructure for the fisheries and animal husbandry sectors. But his Budget has allotted only Rs 10 crore to the Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development...

-The Indian Express Únion Budget 2018: Budget addresses the crises in agriculture. The devil is in the allocations All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. In Anna Karenina, only if a person is satisfied on all counts will she be happy. The allocations in the budget cover every sector, with umpteen implications, and no person’s expectations can be fulfilled on all counts. While every...

-The Indian Express One in every four farmer respondents across all regions of the country said low prices of crops was their most pressing problem. The current crisis in India’s farm sector is perhaps the worst in the last 15-odd years. The Lokniti-CSDS survey (Part 1 was published on Wednesday) has a separate section on farmers’ issues, intended to throw light on their concerns and problems. One in every four farmer respondents across...