-The Business Standard   A seven-point agenda to fix India's public services, and overcome poorly designed systems India's Achilles Heel remains its inability to deliver public services. India's aspiration to be a global economic power will be unrealised if this remains unsolved. Why is this problem so particularly acute? Is it political interference and corruption, poorly designed programmes and weak administration? Or a much deeper cultural problem of aversion to collective action, often...

-The Business Standard   Or, why our subsidy and tax policies have been almost exactly wrong Thomas Piketty's seminal book on inequality, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, comes at a fortuitous time. Although inequality has been a well-discussed issue in India for some time now, the success of the book contributes by sharpening the debate. It complements the McKinsey Global Institute's (MGI) report titled "From poverty to empowerment: India's imperative for jobs, growth,...

-Down to Earth   Adivasis, Bengali Muslims worst hit by child malnutrition in Assam They have low access to nutritious food in spite of increase in number of anganwadis under Integrated Child Development Scheme Adivasis and Bengali Muslims have highest rate of malnutrition in Assam. A comparison with data of 2005-06 for Assam, collected for children of all age groups by the Central government, shows that their condition has not improved despite a...

-Live Mint   Strong political commitment is needed to build a system of universal health coverage and better regulations   Life expectancy in India has more than doubled since independence, to 65 years, from just 32 in 1950. The infant mortality rate has been cut by two-thirds since 1971. Smallpox and guinea worm have been eradicated, the spread of HIV/AIDS has been contained, and the World Health Organization has declared India polio-free.   Yet for all...

-The United Nations   Despite a narrowing disparity in access to cleaner water and better sanitation between rural and urban areas, sharp inequalities still persist around the world, says a new United Nations report. According to the 2014 Joint Monitoring Report on global progress against the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on water and sanitation, more than half of the global population lives in cities, and urban areas are still better supplied with improved...