An unnecessary controversy has been started by the release of the poverty estimates of 2009-10 by the Planning commission. The controversy, which was entirely avoidable, was allowed to go on because of the poor handling of the issue by the Planning commission. It is unfortunate that the Planning commission was less than willing to own the Tendulkar committee report which was submitted in December 2009 and accepted by the commission...

Health ministry instead plans to roll out an integrated national health survey; experts question decision   The Union government has decided to discontinue the country’s most reliable and widely tracked health survey, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the fourth round of which was to be conducted in 2012-13, in a move that has been criticized by development experts. The ministry of health and family welfare is instead Planning to roll out an...

-PTI Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa has expressed her "vehement objection" to the National Commission for Human Resource for Health (NCHRH) Bill, 2011, saying it "undermines" the powers of the state governments.  The Bill, now referred to the Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare by the Rajya Sabha, effectively puts the leadership and decision making process with regard to medical, dental and paramedical education in the "hands of about 25...

-Express News Service Terming the existing institutional and legal structures of water management in the country as “inadequate”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday advocated for “urgent” reforms and batted for an “overarching national legal framework” for the governance of the sector.   Inaugurating India Water Week, which will be celebrated in April every year from now, Singh said: “One of the problems in achieving better management is that the current institutional and...

The key issue is not availability or resources but last mile delivery: how to reach foodgrains to people. In ancient Greece, the punishment given to Tantalus was to tie a cup around his neck and fill it with water. Every time he bent to take a sip, the cup would drop further and he would never get a drop into his parched mouth. From this comes the word “tantalizing”. Something like...