-The Telegraph New Delhi: Free health-care services during childbirth remain a pipe dream for most of India's poor, whether it relates to diagnostic tests, medicines, transport or even food, despite the Union health ministry launching a "free entitlements" programme five years ago. The families of most women who seek childbirth in government hospitals are forced to pay for supposedly "free" services, at times experiencing catastrophic expenditures likely to accentuate their poverty, two...

-The Hindu Confining it to just the Ministry of Rural Development would be the most retrograde step in democratic decentralisation in over a quarter century. If, as The Hindu’s exclusive on Wednesday indicates, Prime Minister Narendra Modi were to close down the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, it would confirm one’s worst fears about his government’s hypocritical approach to grass-roots democracy for grass-roots development. This was a lacuna that was evident in the ‘Gujarat...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: India has done well in curbing stunting over the last decade, but the growing number of overweight people, particularly those prone to diabetes, may be a cause of concern, the Global Nutrition Report 2016, says. Though still home to one third of the world's 159 million stunted children aged below five years, India has witnessed a sharp decline in the prevalence of stunting, from 48% in 2006...

-The Hindu By asking five prominent private hospitals in the national capital to deposit nearly Rs.600 crore to compensate for their failure to treat poor patients, the Delhi government has drawn attention to the social obligation of healthcare providers in the corporate sector as well as the need for timely enforcement of applicable regulations. According to the Kejriwal government, trusts and registered societies to which public land was allotted to establish...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India has done well in curbing stunting over the last decade, but the growing number of overweight people, particularly those prone to diabetes, may be a cause of concern, the Global Nutrition Report, 2016, says. Though still home to one-third of the world's 159 million stunted children aged below five years, India has witnessed a sharp decline in the prevalence of stunting, from 48% in 2006...