-The Hindu Business Line At present, panchayats make no contribution to the design of schemes. Their autonomy is negligible. This needs to change Decentralisation has long been recognised as an efficient instrument for promoting economic democracy, and delivering services to meet the needs of people. There are three different channels for decentralisation — political, administrative and fiscal. Political decentralisation promotes trust and cooperation between government agencies and citizens. Administrative decentralisation enables authority...

-Scroll.in Medical admissions have been paralysed by the government’s inability to offer a rationale for the income criteria used to define economically weaker sections For nearly two weeks now, hospital services in Delhi have been crippled by a strike by resident doctors over the deadlock in admissions to postgraduate medical courses. On Monday, the police allegedly thrashed and detained protesting doctors, registering a case against them, which prompted their association to announce...

-ANI/ NDTV.com "As expected, T cell immunity holding up better against #Omicron. This will protect us against severe disease. Please get vaccinated if you have not," said WHO Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan in a tweet Geneva: Emphasising that the Omicron variant is infecting both vaccinated and unvaccinated people worldwide, WHO Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan has said that it appears that vaccines are still proving to be effective because even though...

-TheWire.in A PIL seeking social security benefits for gig workers and platform workers brings to the front a storm of issues that have festered over the last few years. There is a storm of discontent brewing within India’s app-based worker community, which the Union government has been sidelining for far too long much to the dismay of the over 15 million gig workers in India. While the government persists with an apathetic attitude...

-TheWire.in Millions of school children in India, especially from poor families, dropped out of school over the past two years because of the COVID health emergency. Raghav Paswan, a vegetable vendor from East Delhi has two school-age children, 12-year-old Vinita and nine-year-old Gita, who have not gone to school for the past two years because of the pandemic. Paswan’s meagre income has dropped further during the pandemic, to the point where he could...