-The Hindu The reduction of out-of-pocket expenditure that the NHA highlights is essentially due to a decline in utilisation of care Low public spending on health in India has meant that people depend heavily on their own means to access health care. It causes rich-poor, rural-urban, gender and caste-based divides in access to health care, pushes people to poverty, and forces them to incur debt or sell assets. As a result, our...

The virility of Muslim men vis-à-vis men from other religious communities have often been used as a political tool and to create a divisive agenda just before elections for getting votes from the majority of the Indian electorate who are Hindus. Instead of focusing on positive agendas like human development, employment generation, and poverty reduction, political campaigns just before the elections oftentimes reduce to mere communal propaganda (when a lot...

-The Hindu In order to address the multiple goals of fertilizer policy, India needs to work on four key areas Since 1991, when economic reforms began in India, several attempts have been made to reform the fertilizer sector to keep a check on the rising fertilizer subsidy bill, promote the efficient use of fertilizers, achieve balanced use of N, P, and K (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), and reduce water and air pollution...

-The Hindu The onus is on the government to ensure that there is a robust system of public data production and use When evidence-based policymaking becomes the cornerstone of good governance, it is difficult to overstate the importance of reliable and timely public data. Such data have a direct bearing on the state’s capability to design and implement programmes effectively. Among the emerging economies, India is credited to have a relatively robust...

The increase in the total number of suicides committed in India during 2020 in comparison to the previous years has hit the headlines recently. While some media commentators have stated that the economic distress (caused by job loss, income loss, failure of business, and growing hunger, among other things) in 2020 could have led to more suicides being committed, others have said that home isolation and deteriorating mental health (associated...