-The Hindu India ranks among the lowest in the world in public spending on health, but the private spending is one of the highest. The National Sample Survey Organisation’s report (2006) shows over 35 per cent of people who are hospitalised fall below the poverty line because of the expenses that follow, and over 40 per cent have to borrow or sell assets to pay for their care. Private sector provision...

-The Financial Express As the Centre braces for an expanded distribution of grain among the poor under the national food security law, here’s a sobering thought. According to the latest official data, various state governments have failed to utilise even the grain allocated under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). During the last three fiscal years, states have not been able to take the full delivery of grain — mostly rice and...

-The Hindu The Madras High Court on Friday cleared the decks for the commissioning of Units I and II of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP), holding that there was no impediment to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd to proceed with the project. However, it made it clear that the regulatory authorities should periodically oversee the compliance and maintenance of standards of pollution. “By taking note of the overall situation,...

-The Economic Times Ram Kishen, 52, half-blind and half- starved, holds in his gnarled hands the reason for his hunger: a tattered card entitling him to subsidised rations that now serves as a symbol of India's biggest food heist. Kishen has had nothing from the village shop for 15 months. Yet 20 minutes' drive from Satnapur, past bone-dry fields and tiny hamlets where children with distended bellies play, a government storage facility...

-The Times of India Even as Red menace continues to be a major internal security challenge affecting almost one-third of total districts in the country, West Bengal — parts of which was once a hotbed of Maoist activities — has shown a remarkable improvement with none of its naxal-affected district reporting any casualty in the first seven months this year. Bihar comes next, reporting significant improvement in terms of reduced incidents and...