-Livemint.com In conversation with Guy Standing, economist at the School Of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Neither the Narendra Modi government nor Rahul Gandhi have gotten minimum income scheme right, he says New Delhi: Income support is the big economic idea of the season. While the ruling BJP government announced a limited money transfer scheme targeted at farmers in the recent interim budget, the Congress has proposed to solve the country’s...

-The Hindu A basic income scheme will deliver benefits to the poor only if it comes on top of public services The idea of a universal basic income (UBI) is gaining ground globally. It has supporters among the political left and right, and among proponents as well as opponents of the free-market economy. A UBI requires the government to pay every citizen a fixed amount of money on a regular basis and...

-The Hindu The regulatory framework must be reformed to ensure access to safe and sufficient blood A ready supply of safe blood in sufficient quantities is a vital component of modern health care. In 2015-16, India was 1.1 million units short of its blood requirements. Here too, there were considerable regional disparities, with 81 districts in the country not having a blood bank at all. In 2016, a hospital in Chhattisgarh turned...

-The Telegraph Hospitalisation cover does not protect families from catastrophic expenses A three-state study has found that India’s government-funded or private health insurance schemes that pay for hospitalisation have not adequately protected households from catastrophic health expenditures and rekindled the debate on how to achieve universal health care. The study that examined sample households in Gujarat, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh found 28 per cent of insured households and 26 per cent of uninsured...

-The Telegraph Govt. views detection as a sign of better disease management The rise in the number of recorded leprosy cases from 86,147 (in 2013-14) to 90,709 (2017-18), reported a decade and a half after India was declared leprosy-free in 2005, has turned the spotlight on the hotspots for the disease. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has set the goal of zero children with leprosy and deformities by 2020, and less than one...