-TheWire.in Conditionalities related to utilising health services do not make any sense in the absence of a service guarantee, and only serve to blame the victims and not the system for its failures. Nearly six months after the prime minister announced maternity benefits of Rs 6,000 to pregnant and lactating mothers, the cabinet yesterday approved the implementation of the maternity benefits programme (MBP) – a scheme that will likely exclude a large...
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On track, but more needed -R Prasad
-The Hindu Institutional deliveries are up in India, but breastfeeding within the first hour of birth needs to keep pace Despite Institutional Delivery being as high as nearly 79% nationally, the number of children in India breastfed within one hour of birth is less than 42% — near 43% in urban areas and 41% in rural India, according to the National Family Health Survey 4 (NFHS-4) data released a few days ago....
More »Big Brother is winning -Pratap Bhanu Mehta
-The Indian Express The enhancement of state powers without control or transparency is not being done against our wishes The clamour for security, accountability and transparency is leading to unfettered increase in the power of states. We are enacting law after law, introducing technology after technology, to render citizens transparent to the state. But at the same time, we are weakening protections and consenting to technologies in a way that makes the...
More »Budget 2017 Disappoints, Maternity Benefit Programme Underfunded, Excludes Those Who Need It The Most -Dipa Sinha
-NDTV According to the World Health Statistics (2016), nearly 5 women die every hour in India due to pregnancy and delivery related complications. 17 per cent of maternal deaths in the world occur in India. Based on the data from the Rapid Survey on Children (2013), only 65 per cent of children are exclusively breastfed up to six months of age. Infant and child mortality rates are high as well. Child...
More »Pregnant Women Entitled to Rs 6,000: Maternity scheme gets Rs 2,700 crore, experts say not enough - Shalini Nair
-The Indian Express The scheme grants Rs 6,000 to pregnant and lactating women who go for Institutional Delivery and vaccinate their children. The much-talked about maternity benefit entitlement of Rs 6,000 per woman, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 31, 2016, has received a meagre allocation of Rs 2,700 crore. This is not even a quarter of the estimate drawn up by civil society groups that have been long demanding...
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