A new United Nations report says that a radically simplified approach to ensuring access to HIV treatment for everyone who needs it could prevent 10 million deaths by 2025 and 1 million new infections annually. The so-called Treatment 2.0, says the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), could lower the cost of treatment, simplify treatment regimens, ease the burden on health systems, and improve the quality of life for people living...
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Government plans to expand basket of subsidised food items by Rajeev Jayaswal & Subhash Narayan
The government plans to expand the basket of subsidised food items supplied to the poor by adding edible oil, sugar and pulses to wheat and rice provided currently, as it looks to ensure complete nutrition to the deprived. The proposal is expected to be discussed at the July 24 meeting of National Development Council, a body of state chief ministers chaired by the Prime Minister. The idea was mooted by...
More »NAC seeks universal inclusion under food security legislation by Liz Mathew
A panel of experts that sets the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance administration’s social agenda is likely to reject a draft law to offer cash compensation to the poor, who do not receive their quota of subsidized foodgrain. Members of the National Advisory Council (NAC), which is led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, insisted during a Thursday meeting that the entitlement should be universal, instead of being restricted to families below the...
More »Food entitlements likely to be a contentious issue by Smita Gupta
The question of whether it is possible to move — and how swiftly — towards universalising food entitlements under the proposed National Food Security Act, dominated the second meeting of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) here on Thursday, NAC sources told TheHindu. Universalising food entitlements will hinge on availability of food grains, and on whether the exchequer is in a position to bear additional cost of food subsidy...
More »Poverty rate in India will dip to 24% by ’15
The number of poor people in India is expected to halve by 2015, according to the 2010 Millennium Development Goals report released on Wednesday. The poverty rate in the country is slated to decline from 51% of the population in 1990 to 24% over the next five years. That translates into around 188 million more people meeting a minimum subsistence standard of $1.25 a day—the benchmark for the report's findings....
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