-Live Mint At a time when India plans a multi-pronged attack on malnutrition in 200 high-burden districts, it will pay to examine the cracks in state institutions that have led to past failures and can still derail well-intentioned plans. Melghat, a tribal corner in the northeastern fringes of India’s richest state—Maharashtra—is an apt example of almost everything that has gone wrong in India’s response to malnutrition and child deaths. Every 14th child dies...

Progressive strengthening of public facilities is the only way to reach medical services to the population as a whole. “The best form of providing health protection would be to change the economic system which produces ill health, and to liquidate ignorance, poverty and unemployment. The practice of each individual purchasing his own medical care does not work. It is unjust, inefficient, wasteful and completely outmoded ... In our highly geared, modern...

Amit Kumar, an Indian journalist based in the eastern state of Bihar, received a tip in 2009 from a village called Manan Bigha just two kilometers away from his home. There was a man there dying from starvation, he was told. The situation was urgent. Mr. Kumar rushed off to visit the man, Kangresh Manjhi, and exhaustively documented his story. He learned how Mr. Manjhi, a lower-caste, landless laborer, was forced...

-The Hindu   The Centre's move to introduce an experimental universal health package in at least one district per State under the National Rural Health Mission, with access to free generic drugs, is a welcome measure. But the larger mission to provide free essential medicines to all citizens need not await the results of such pilot studies. It should be rolled out for poor and non-poor alike quickly. There is no time...

-The Hindustan Times   The CBI filed the first chargesheet in the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam on Tuesday. According to the chargesheet, five former UP government officials — among others — have misappropriated Rs 13.4 crore, 68% of the NRHM funds meant to upgrade 134 district hospitals in Uttar Pradesh. The officials were working with the state Construction & Design Services (C&DS), a unit of the Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam. Among...