-The Indian Express Dr Manoj Thaguria said, “A lot of patients revisit the dispensaries, hence the high number of beneficiaries. Some also manage to get a second course of prescribed medicines on the same day." Jaipur: In his budget address earlier this week, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot increased the number of free medicines from 608 to 712 and free tests from 70 to 90, under the Chief Minister’s Free Medicine...

-Business Standard Congress president's letters to chief ministers of Chhattisgarh, MP and Rajasthan asks them to 'review the implementation' of the Land Acquisition Act. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has asked the party’s chief ministers in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to undo changes that previous BJP governments made to the land acquisition law and related regulations. Gandhi has written letters asking the chief ministers to ensure that the rights of tribals and forest-dwellers...

-Hindustan Times Unfulfilled promise of generating 1.5 million jobs, anger among castes that formed the traditional BJP vote base and rural distress will be major issues when Rajasthan goes to polls. When chief minister Vasundhara Raje undertook her jan samwad (public dialogues) initiative across Rajasthan in January 2018, the idea was for her to step out of Jaipur to meet and talk to people across the state and dispel the impression...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com New Delhi: The 100-day Accountability Yatra across Rajasthan led by the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) has had an impact. The state government has issued orders to re-verify all one million pensions that had been stopped, including the 688,875 pensions that had been cancelled. From December 2015 to March this year the yatra had travelled to 33 districts in Rajasthan to assess how government schemes were functioning, find out people’s grievances...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com For the past decade state governments have launched a series of Internet-based initiatives to deliver services more efficiently. Technology has been seen as the best way of bypassing red tape and corruption in the system to reach the poor directly with benefits. Beneficiaries are identified through biometrics and a series of tech solutions like smart cards, micro ATMs and so on. The result of these efforts is that India is...