-Business Standard Health cess recommended; public health care to be primary focus The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government plans to increase public investment in health from 1.04 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) to 2.5 per cent by 2020, with 70 per cent of this being dedicated to primary health care. This target has been set in the overhauled draft National Health Policy that now emphasises on substantially ratcheting up government...

-Livemint.com The two weather agencies have had different forecasts for this year’s monsoon since April For once, the state-run forecaster India Meteorological Department (IMD) and private weather forecaster Skymet Weather Services Pvt. Ltd are on the SAMe page: Rainfall in August will be below normal. The two weather agencies have had different forecasts for this year’s monsoon since April. Recently in August, while IMD reiterated that monsoon this year will be deficient,...

-Economic and Political Weekly The decennial National SAMple Survey on health and education provides useful information on the health and education of the population. The summary report on health from the 71st round conducted in 2014 allows us to make an initial assessment of three sets of issues. One, the trends in morbidity rates and patterns of morbidity, two, the effectiveness of the public sector in ensuring access to healthcare, and...

-Economic and Political Weekly Farmers' unions and political parties have been demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan minimum support price (cost plus 50%) to address agrarian crisis and farmers' distress. But they have not raised demands for the implementation of the recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers, which have the potential to provide lasting solutions. Ranjit Singh Ghuman (ghumanrs@yahoo.co.uk) is a Nehru SAIL Chair Professor, Centre for Research in Rural and...

-The Hindu The PMJDY celebrates success on its website, but thousands of Marys remain outside the banking system. This won’t change unless the scheme alters both design and implementation A few months ago, when the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) was still being spoken of as a success for the largest number of accounts opened in a day, earning the government a Guinness world record, I visited the branch of a...