-The Business Standard   A seven-point agenda to fix India's public services, and overcome poorly designed systems India's Achilles Heel remains its inability to deliver public services. India's aspiration to be a global economic power will be unrealised if this remains unsolved. Why is this problem so particularly acute? Is it political interference and corruption, poorly designed programmes and weak administration? Or a much deeper cultural problem of aversion to collective action, often...

-Down to Earth   Adivasis, Bengali Muslims worst hit by child malnutrition in Assam They have low access to nutritious food in spite of increase in number of anganwadis under Integrated Child Development Scheme Adivasis and Bengali Muslims have highest rate of malnutrition in Assam. A comparison with data of 2005-06 for Assam, collected for children of all age groups by the Central government, shows that their condition has not improved despite a...

-Live Mint   Strong political commitment is needed to build a system of universal health coverage and better regulations   Life expectancy in India has more than doubled since independence, to 65 years, from just 32 in 1950. The infant mortality rate has been cut by two-thirds since 1971. Smallpox and guinea worm have been eradicated, the spread of HIV/AIDS has been contained, and the World Health Organization has declared India polio-free.   Yet for all...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Days before the new government will take the charge at Centre, a high-level task force, headed by the planning commission member K Kasturirangan, has submitted its report highlighting the ways and means to convert municipal waste into energy and pitched for involving private players in a big way for achieving the goal of sustainable waste management in the country. The report - Waste to Energy -...

-Frontline   A Delhi High Court verdict says the State government is bound to ensure that poor and vulnerable sections of society have access to treatment for rare and chronic diseases. SEVEN-YEAR-OLD Mohammed Ahmed Khan looked on helplessly as his father, Sirajuddin, narrated the sordid tale of the loss of four of his children to Gaucher's disease, a rare genetic disease that requires lifelong, exorbitantly expensive enzyme replacement therapy. Sirajuddin, a rickshaw...