-The Indian Express The focus in the Union Budget on tertiary healthcare at the cost of primary and secondary healthcare is flawed. A publicly-financed health insurance scheme is no substitute If the past three Union budgets were any indication, this budget’s approach to the health sector should not have surprised anyone. The prescription in the National Health Policy (NHP) 2017 to increase the government’s (Centre and the states together) health expenditure from the...
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Right to Food Campaign demands immediate implementation of Maternity Entitlements as per the National Food Security Act 2013
-Press Release by Right to Food Campaign The Right to Food Campaign demands justice for pregnant women and their infants. For more than four years, all Indian women except those working in government/public sector undertakings have been entitled by law to a maternity benefit of at least Rs. 6000, guaranteed under the National Food Security Act (NFSA, 2013). Yet, the government of India not only has failed to deliver this entitlement...
More »Reetika Khera, Associate Professor of Economics at IIT-Delhi, interviewed by Surabhi (The Hindu Business Line)
-The Hindu Business Line The government must universalise social security pensions for the elderly, single women and persons with disabilities and also operationalise the maternity entitlement scheme at the earliest, says Reetika Khera, Associate Professor of Economics at IIT-Delhi. In an interview to BusinessLine, Khera argued against the use of Aadhaar for authentication of beneficiaries and said it has “no role in plugging leakages or in the identification of correct beneficiaries”....
More »Maternity entitlements on hold: How the government has undermined women's and children's rights -Jean Dreze
-The Times of India One year ago, on 31 December 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that the government would soon provide for maternity benefits of Rs 6,000 per child. He announced this as if it were a new initiative, possibly aimed at sweetening the demonetisation pill. What he did not mention is that maternity entitlements of Rs 6,000 per child had been a legal right of all Indian women since...
More »Maternity Benefit scheme to become fully functional by February-end: Centre
-PTI So far, the benefits of the scheme have reached 10,000 women approximately, says govt The Centre is trying to make the maternity benefit programme, which has been marred by delay, 'fully functional' by February-end, a senior official said on Monday. The top economists of the country wrote to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley last month flagging the delay in the rollout of the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), which promises pregnant and...
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