-The Hindu Business Line Discussions are on with insurance companies: official New Delhi: The government is considering the launch of a universal health insurance product, a government official said, adding that the Department of Financial Services has already held discussions with insurance companies for the launch of such a product. The government is also considering ways to incentivise providers to encourage good health rather than hospitalisation. “So far, health schemes are pushing for hospitalisation...

-Business Standard Health cess recommended; public health care to be primary focus The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government plans to increase public investment in health from 1.04 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) to 2.5 per cent by 2020, with 70 per cent of this being dedicated to primary health care. This target has been set in the overhauled draft National Health Policy that now emphasises on substantially ratcheting up government...

-Economic and Political Weekly Farmers' unions and political parties have been demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan minimum support price (cost plus 50%) to address agrarian crisis and farmers' distress. But they have not raised demands for the implementation of the recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers, which have the potential to provide lasting solutions. Ranjit Singh Ghuman (ghumanrs@yahoo.co.uk) is a Nehru SAIL Chair Professor, Centre for Research in Rural and...

-Business Standard Nations below a level of per-capita GDP representing a peaking point could be allowed to expand total emissions The world's climate change negotiators will meet again in December in Paris. The good news is that all countries, including developing countries, have agreed to announce their "intended nationally determined contributions" (INDCs). The bad news is that they are nowhere near an agreement on action by individual countries that could limit global...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...