-The Times of India Free medicines to all patients visiting any government health facility across the country could soon be a reality with the health ministry ready to roll out a nearly Rs 30,000 crore 'free-medicines-for-all' scheme with the PMO's strong backing. The free medicine initiative along with an expansion of the National Rural Health Mission to urban areas, a more district-oriented approach and implementation of recommendations of the K Srinath Reddy...

The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...

The Law Ministry has reportedly accepted a proposal of the Election Commission to amend the law to make bribing of voters, either in cash or kind, a cognisable offence. It has written to the Home Ministry seeking issue of an ordinance to amend IPC Section 171(B), under which the bribe giver is now booked, to make it a cognisable offence. It would also apply to those who take bribes. With the...

-The Indian Express   Pranab Mukherjee should use his waking hours to signal bold reforms Until a few years ago no one really thought that governments could go bust. But the deepening sovereign debt crises of Europe have now persuaded us that governments can go bust if their debt levels cross a certain danger mark. What is that danger mark remains a matter of research by economists around the world. Some studies have concluded...

Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh is seeking doubling of funds for water supply and sanitation programmes to Rs 20,000 crore in the upcoming budget, arguing that it is high time the Centre focused on this neglected sector.  Ramesh, who holds the additional charge of the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, has indicated that he is unwilling to settle for anything short of Rs 16,000 crore. The finance ministry has, so...