-The Hindu The discourse must move beyond a top-down approach to listen to the people and formulate best insurance practices Much ink has been spilled in documenting the inadequacy of budgetary allocations for public health insurance, specifically for the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the world’s largest publicly-funded health insurance (PFHI) scheme. Though the 2017-18 budget allocation has marginally increased from last year’s revised estimates, it has declined relative to last year’s...

-PTI Activists claim the facilities existed only on paper Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh): Toilets have gone “missing” from a house in a Chhattisgarh village and a woman and her daughter want the police to trace them fast. The women filed a written complaint with the police last week after they found out that the two toilets, proposed under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, were shown in documents as already having been constructed with funds released for...

-Livemint.com Abject poverty, high levels of debt, and crop failures among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to a study commissioned by agriculture ministry New Delhi: Abject poverty, high levels of indebtedness, crop failures and pressure to repay loans are among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to the preliminary findings of a study commissioned by the Union agriculture ministry. The broad findings of the study conducted by the Institute for...

-Scroll.in Arsenic levels in water have been as high as 3,880 parts per billion in parts of the state. Pollution standards cite 50 parts per billion as harmful. It is a day like any other at Mahavir Cancer Sansthan. The driveway is lined with people who have travelled a long way to get to this charitable hospital in Patna. Families sit huddled, holding their bags close. The lobby is even more crowded,...

-The Indian Express UP’s farm loan waiver could prompt other states to follow suit, evade real reasons for agricultural distress The new Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, has hit the ground running. In his first cabinet meeting, he took three important decisions with regard to farmers. First, he waived farm loans of more than Rs 36,000 crore, primarily of the small and marginal farmers who comprise 92 per cent of the...