-The Telegraph New Delhi: After two decades of practising gynaecology, Arun Gadre decided to turn whistleblower and seek out others like him who could articulate what he says are disturbing practices in India's healthcare system that hurt patients. Gadre, while running a private clinic in Lasalgaon in western Maharashtra, had seen women prescribed hysterectomies without justification, women coaxed into opting for Caesarean sections when normal deliveries may have been possible, patients prescribed...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The Economic Survey emphasizes on the need for a national common agricultural market and identifies un-integrated and distortion ridden agricultural market as the one of the most striking problems in agriculture growth. The Economic Survey suggests 3 incremental steps as possible solution, building on the Budget 2014 recognition for setting up a national market, farmers' markets and need for the Central Government and the State Government...

-The Hindu Report on Maharashtra looks at NSS data Mumbai: Nearly 47% out of Maharashtra's total employed population, which is dependent on agriculture, fisheries and forestry as an economic activity, earns only Rs 100 per day on an average. The data is in sheer contradiction with the earnings of 1.36% of the employed population from Information and Communication sector in the state, which on an average earns Rs. 833 per day, higher than...

-Tehelka National Health Policy 2015 draft could end up being a paper tiger Successive governments since the reforms of 1991 have been criticised for low funding on health, lowest in the world. Nearly one percent of India's gross domestic product (GDP) is spent each year on public health. But the new government has pledged to turn the tide around by increasing government spending to 2.5 percent of GDP in the draft health...

-The Hindu Business Line   Farmers don't get premium for their produce in the initial stages during transition to this agriculture Development of organic agriculture as an alternative tool to address the ill-effects of chemical-based cultivation practices is a recent phenomenon in India. It had achieved dramatic progress in the beginning but could not maintain the pace. The growth of organic agriculture in India has been accomplished by three categories of farmers. The first...