-The Hindu Citizens should not be asked to provide the same information more than once to government agencies In June 2014, the Modi government set out to change how the government worked. At that time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke in a meeting of Union Secretaries about “reforming the public service delivery system and bridging the governance deficit” by introducing “self-certification” in place of “affidavits”. That event revealed his enthusiasm and commitment...

-Newsclick.in The poor, salaried, businesspersons -- all are unhappy. For, the underlying macroeconomics is wrong – the finance minister is trying to solve the aggregate demand problem by supply-side economics. The annual budget of the Union government was placed in Parliament on the February 1, 2020. In the very beginning of her second budget speech, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned that “this is the Budget to boost their (people of India) incomes...

-Livemint.com MGNREGS could alleviate rural distress but, in its current form, its overall impact on the rural economy is limited in scope With rural distress deepening across India and private consumption growing anaemically, calls for ramping up the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), are growing louder ahead of the upcoming budget. Proponents of MGNREGS believe that it may be the only ammunition in the government’s arsenal to fight rural...

-Newsclick.in A plethora of Evidence shows that in India, public-private partnerships have either been rolled back or have led to poor health outcomes. Recently, government think-tank NITI Aayog came up with a proposal for running district hospitals in public-private partnership (PPP) mode. Under the proposal, new and existing private medical colleges will be linked with functional district hospitals. According to sources, the proposal is open to public comments till February 10, 2020. There...

-The Hindu Apart from vaccination, this has to involve efficient vector control and proper case management The advent of a new tetravalent vaccine against the dengue virus has thrown new light into the Evidence-based management of dengue. An article recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that this vaccine confers about 80% protection to children vaccinated between 4 and 16 years of age without any major side effects. It...