ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

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Child Labour and Food Security

Coming to Grips with Rural Child Work. A Food Security Approach by Rira Ramachandran and Lionel Massun (editors); Institute for Human Development, New Delhi,  2002 ; pp 468, Rs 750.

Promoting Public-Private Partnership in Health Services

The concept of public-private partnership (PPP) in health services has been increasingly adopted as an alternative option by state governments. This essay explores one such model, the Rogi Kalyan Samiti, in MP's Badnagar tehsil.

Adolescent Obesity: An Epidemic in the Offing?

Obesity rates have already reached alarming proportions in high income countries, and are rising rapidly in developing countries, especially among families that are both resource and time constrained. If measures are not taken to head off the problem in countries like India, the consequences could be dire.

Surgical Instruments Industry at Jalandhar

The surgical instruments industry concentrated in Punjab's Jalandhar district remains rooted in obsolete production processes and dominated by the unorganised labour sector. However, the industry needs sustained interventions, spearheaded by the state and industry associations to withstand the threat it now faces from liberalisation.

Assessing Private Health Insurance in India

The entry of private health insurance companies in India is likely to have an impact on the costs of health care, equity in the financing of care, and the quality and cost-effectiveness of such care. However, an informed consumer and well-defined and implemented insurance regulation regime will ameliorate some of the bad outcomes. Regulation relating to benefitpackages, restrictions on risk selection and consumer protection would be clearly useful; also required are improved enforcement of regulatory regimes, creating large insurance buyer groups, and better coordination between IRDA and other regulatory bodies. New legislation in improving standards in health care provision may also be needed.

Draft National Health Policy 2001-I : Debt Payment and Devaluing Elements of Public Health

Had the new health policy document proposed an overarching vision of how all the elements it enumerates would be put in place, it would have been a visionary document. As it stands the draft policy is riddled with contradictions and confusions. It spells a significant departure from the 1983 policy objectives of providing primary health care for all, specially the underprivileged. Instead of creatively utilising private sector to provide basic affordable health care, it all but hands over the task to the private sector, inevitably undermining existing national health programmes. By encouraging the corporate involvement in tertiary and secondary level medical care without first ensuring their access to the underprivileged, the draft denies the rights of the poor to good care.

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