-Live Mint NAC wants Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna to be absorbed into new policy for universal health coverage  The National Advisory Council (NAC), which sets the policy agenda for the Congress party led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, wants the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) insurance scheme to be absorbed into the new policy for universal health coverage (UHC), taking the latter closer to realization.   This is part of the government’s bid to move...

-Live Mint The current policy on compensating landowners could adversely affect character of India’s future growth The Parliament is currently considering a land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement Bill (LARR Bill), as are various state legislatures. These are likely to affect the pace and character of future growth in India in a significant way.  Setting up new industries, service establishments and real estate development will inevitably require land to be acquired from rural areas....

-The Hoot Buried in a parliamentary committee report is a refutation by villagers of TOI’s controversial stories on BT cotton’s virtues, published in 2008 and reprinted in the paper as paid news in 2011. PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA revisits the saga  Allegations leveled by Palagummi Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu newspaper that its competing daily, the Times of India, published an article at the behest of Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech without disclosing this...

-The Hindu Business Line India can learn from Brazil’s Bolsa Familia and China’s Gansu Programme to make refinements to its MGNREGA scheme. The development experiences of Brazil, China and India provide a valuable opportunity to understand the relationship between growth and distribution over periods of high rates of growth. The growth story playing out in all the three emerging economies have resulted in large regional as well as spatial inequalities, between rural and...

-PTI Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today alleged that the state was "deliberately left out" by the Centre when announcements were being made for relief packages for states facing drought-like situation. Referring to the relief announced by the Centre for some states like Gujarat, Maharashta and Haryana in view of drought like situation, Badal said "it is unfortunate that Punjab was deliberately left out of its ambit despite the fact that...