-Economic and Political Weekly For India to improve the existing government health system is far less complex than expanding health insurance. International experience shows the difficulties of regulating an insurance-based system to keep costs down and assure quality. Monica Das Gupta (mdasgupta@gmail.com) teaches at the University of Maryland, College Park, the US. V R Muraleedharan (vrm@iitm. ac.in) teaches at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Please click here to download. ...

-The Indian Express In his speech, PM Modi said that opening bank accounts is a step towards joining economic mainstream. Launching his government's first big ticket social welfare programme, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday gave a call for eradicating what he termed as "financial untouchability" of the poor by opening at least one bank account for every family in the country in less than...

-The Business Standard Financial inclusion must be set up to pay for itself The Jan Dhan Yojana, a scheme for financial inclusion announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech, intends to take banking services to the 40 per cent of India that does not have bank accounts. This task is daunting. A good portion of those no-frills accounts that have already been opened have only minimal activity -...

A recent study published in the prestigious science journal 'PLOS One' (August 2014) shows that Central programmes like National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), and state-level initiatives like Yeshasvini health insurance scheme (Karnataka), Vajpayee Aarogyasri health insurance scheme (Karnataka), Rajiv Aarogyasri scheme (Andhra Pradesh), Chief Minister's Insurance Scheme for Life Saving Treatment (Tamil Nadu) etc. did little to reduce the financial burden arising out of...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley said that Varishtha Pension Bima Yojana (VPBY) will benefit the vulnerable section of society with limited resources as it will provide monthly pension ranging from Rs 500/ to Rs 5,000/ per month to senior citizens of the country. The Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley was speaking after re-launching the Varishtha Pension Bima Yojana (VPBY) here today on...