-Livemint.com The government relies on for-profit big business to deliver public goods despite their inability to deliver Can we listen to the budget as an annual public statement by the government of its economic and social philosophy and intent? The centre abandoned five-year plans that earlier laid down a road map of where government policies are headed. The budget, then, is an important reality check of whether the government is literally...

-The Hindu Business Line The wool of this north Karnataka breed has helped the herder community handcraft a crorepati business These sheep, strikingly black, have a rich coat of coarse wool that has long provided the army and police force with a steady supply of warm blankets. Called Deccani, the lambs are sheared twice a year, each of them yielding a little over one kg of raw wool, which is ideal for...

-FirstPost.com The preliminary reactions of many people after the Budget presentation gave the impression that farm sector got a boost in terms of a significant increase in budget outlays for the sector. But a closer look reveals that behind this apparent increase is the accounting adjustment of funds for interest subvention, earlier reported under the Ministry of Finance, now shown under the Ministry of Agriculture. In 2014-15, actual spending by the Department...

-TheWire.in The message coming out of finance minister Arun Jaitley’s budget this year is that the rural economy is back at the heart of policy-making. One of the highlights of the budget was the announcement of the ‘Health Protection Scheme’, under which poor households will be provided with an annual cover of Rs. 1 lakh to protect them from health-related financial shocks. This marks a significant expansion of the Rashtriya Swasthya...

-The Hindu If the Indian government is serious about its commitment to realise the rights of its citizens to universal and equitable health care, it cannot ignore rare diseases. The draft National Health Policy, 2015, makes no mention of them Rare diseases are a diverse set of over 7,000 different conditions that afflict an estimated 1 in 20 Indians and 350 million people worldwide. Put simply, it means that every bus on...