-Down to Earth Experience shows free medicines help more, say some experts Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan announced on Wednesday that his government will launch the National Health Assurance Mission in the current fiscal year. The idea, the minister said, is to "assure" every Indian citizen with appropriate health care. Speaking at the 8th Health Insurance Summit, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), he said everyone should have Access to...

-The Hindu Providing Access to credit likely to be a hard step For Prime Minister Narendra Modi's newly launched Jan Dhan Yojana to be successful, India needs to provide over 100 million households Access to banks, data show. An even harder step, however, is likely to be Access to credit. As of March 2012, the most recent year for which relevant Reserve Bank of India (RBI) statistics are available, India had over 900...

- Economic and Political Weekly Universalising health coverage is the current goal of the health service system in India. Tax-funded insurance for poor families is the method chosen for attaining this objective. The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana was rolled out in 2008 for households below the poverty line, enabling them to Access health services in the public and private sectors. However, experience from different countries shows tax-funded insurance systems work well...

-The Business Standard The Planning Commission needs to be replaced by institutions prescribed under the Constitution for the functions it usurped The Planning Commission was a powerful centre of extra-constitutional authority, but not because the Constitution overlooked the need for the roles that it played. The prescription of fiscal flows from Centre to states was assigned under Article 280 to Finance Commissions, set up every five years with what by convention...

-NDTV Meerut (Uttar Pradesh): The BJP's new rhetoric focusing on a communal twist to crimes against women in Uttar Pradesh is not borne out by cold facts. Data Accessed by NDTV shows that in western Uttar Pradesh, where vociferous campaigns have highlighted the alleged abuse of Hindu women by Muslim men, women have been assaulted by men from their own community in most rape cases this year. On Sunday, we had reported...