-The Telegraph In a primary health centre in eastern Jharkhand, the angry shouts of a nurse punctuated the occasional wails of a woman in her early-20s who was in labour pain and only minutes away from delivering her baby. Each time a uterine contraction evoked a yell or a wail or the woman sought a more comfortable position during labour, the nurse or other health workers admonished her, asking her to shut...

-Outlook Why free mobiles to BPL folks is a bad idea  “Here you don’t have money to provide them food, and you are thinking of giving them phones,” scoffs a minister in the UPA government, obviously off the record. His comment mirrors the general negative reaction to the ‘Har Haath Mein Phone’ scheme mooted by the Planning Commission, which aims to provide a free mobile phone to each below the poverty line...

-The Hindu Scheme coming for free distribution of medicines through public hospitals and health centres The government will expand the scope of the NRHM to all towns and cities, by converting it into a National Health Mission (NHM), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced on Wednesday. In his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort here, he said the government was also formulating a new scheme for distribution of free medicines...

-Business Today "I want it back," says Sharada Begum. The 67-year-old woman is a member of one of the 100 households of Raghubir Nagar, a resettlement colony in west Delhi, chosen to participate in a pilot scheme that aimed to turn the public distribution system (PDS) on its head. Through all of 2011, these households had Rs 1,000 transferred every month to a woman member's bank account in lieu of rice, wheat,...

-The Hindu Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre provides care, rehabilitation for free Around 10 days ago, when 15-month-old Dundavva was brought to the Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) at the government hospital here, she was critically malnourished. Now, after her stay at the centre, she is not only recovering from chest infection, but is also gaining weight. An anganwadi worker brought Dundavva and her mother, Sharada, to the centre from Matyal village in Basavanabagewadi taluk. Pilot project Like Dundavva,...