The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is likely to run into a debate on public health policy after the Planning Commission moved to nix a proposal to include healthcare in the list of public entitlements such as education and food. Central to the proposal—initiated by a high-level expert group (HLEG) headed by K. Srinath Reddy, a leading advocate of preventive cardiology and president of the Public Health Foundation of India—was the...

-Live Mint The Planning Commission’s decision to not include healthcare in the list of essential entitlements such as education and food comes after an expert group recommended exactly the opposite. The group was to evaluate the role of the state as a healthcare provider, and it came to the unexceptionable conclusion that public health infrastructure should be strengthened to provide better and more affordable healthcare to all Indians. However, the Planning...

The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...

-The Times of India Free medicines to all patients visiting any government health facility across the country could soon be a reality with the health ministry ready to roll out a nearly Rs 30,000 crore 'free-medicines-for-all' scheme with the PMO's strong backing. The free medicine initiative along with an expansion of the National Rural Health Mission to urban areas, a more district-oriented approach and implementation of recommendations of the K Srinath Reddy...

Like many board games that were developed in India, of which chess is perhaps the most important and famous, the game of “snakes and ladders” too emerged in this country a long time ago. With its balancing of snakes that pull you down and ladders that take you up, this game has been used again and again as a metaphor for life, telling us about our fortunes and misfortunes, and...