“Only one third of the journey has been completed” The last case of wild polio virus reported in India was exactly one year ago, on January 13, when stool samples showed that 18-month-old Rukhsar Khatoon in West Bengal had polio. She has since recovered, but it is the progress of whittling down from the largest number of cases in the world to zero that is fascinating to public health experts globally. Clearly,...
More »SEARCH RESULT
The glory and the blemishes of the Indian news media by Amartya Sen
One of the great achievements of India is our free and vibrant press. This is an accomplishment of direct relevance to the working of democracy. Authoritarianism flourishes not only by stifling opposition, but also by systematically suppressing information. The survival and flowering of Indian democracy owes a great deal to the freedom and vigour of our press. There are so many occasions when, sitting even in Europe or in America,...
More »Medicines for all
-The Hindu Achieving Universal Health Coverage through an equitable system is among the key goals of India's 12th Plan. Within the overall objective of creating an entitlement-based health care system, one of the challenges is access to medicines. The High Level Expert Group instituted by the Planning Commission on Universal Health Coverage underscores serious policy distortions and inefficiencies that stand in the way of making essential medicines accessible to all. A...
More »Understanding the PDS by Jean Dreze and Reetika Khera
A survey in nine States shows that they have quietly revived and expanded their public distribution system. AT a time when the Union Cabinet cleared the draft of the national food security Bill after dilly-dallying over it comes a compelling piece of information: many State governments have quietly revived and expanded the public distribution system in their States. That, at any rate, is one of the main findings of a...
More »It's a travesty of food security, says CPI(M) by Gargi Parsai
Bill will come up for discussion in the Cabinet on Monday, says K.V. Thomas Even as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Friday said the proposed National Food Security Bill was “unacceptable,” Minister of State for Food K.V. Thomas indicated that legislation was coming up for discussion in the Cabinet on Monday. The CPI(M) has demanded the removal of the linking of entitlements to reforms in the public distribution system from...
More »