Policy Wise

A San Fransisco suburb has proposed banning smoking in multi-unit homes,
A strict new ordinance is still set to be unveiled this winter for more public discussion and an eventual vote. But instead of just the flat-out ban on lighting up in apartments, condominiums and public places that captured worldwide attention, City Atty. [...]

Robert J. Samuelson is right on the mony.
For decades, Americans have treated health care as if it exists in a separate economic and political world: When people need care, they should get it; costs should remain out of sight. About 60 percent of Americans receive insurance through their employers; to most workers, the full costs [...]

From New Scientist, a report on how Novartis is is mounting a legal challenge on India’s patent laws to prevent production of low-cost generic AIDS drugs.
Tens of thousands of people being treated for AIDS will suffer if Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis succeeds in changing India’s patent law, the humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on [...]

Paul Krugman has an interesting article on free market guru-Milton Friedman.
Milton Friedman played three roles in the intellectual life of the twentieth century. There was Friedman the economist’s economist, who wrote technical, more or less apolitical analyses of consumer behavior and inflation. There was Friedman the policy entrepreneur, who spent decades campaigning on behalf of [...]

It may seem a bit obvious, but Science News has a story on research on correlation between urban sprawl and obesity.

[University of British Columbia Professor Lawrence] Frank is part of an emerging area of cross-disciplinary science that’s examining the relationship between the shapes of our cities and the shapes of our bodies.He and other researchers [...]

In spite of the fact that humans occupy less than 1% of the total land available on Earth, land scarcity is an omnipresent urban reality. Partly due to urban aggregation behavior and availability of conducive habitable spaces, the fight for space especially in urban areas has been intense. Be it the ever-growing slums in Mumbai [...]

Montek Singh Alhuwalia is right on the money,
Stop subsidising higher education and increase the fees. That is the recipe of Montek Singh Alhuwalia to improve the quality of education. The Deputy Chairman of India’s Planning Commission was addressing students at the University of Mumbai’s 150th convocation ceremony on Sunday.[link]
In a country which is unable to [...]

In recent years, American companies have been complaining of rising health care premiums. Some have argued that it is putting American companies at a disadvantage and have even advocated national health care. As the nation debates health care reforms, the companies are taking matters in their own hands.
Within the last two years, companies including [...]

The government seems to be finally waking upto the serious crisis which Indian science faces.

The Department of Science and Technology has therefore come out with the scheme of INSPIRE to offer science as a career option by providing necessary opportunities for youth with aptitude for careers seeking innovation and psychic delight in addition to reasonable [...]

 
Over at Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen outlines various options/scenarios vis-a-vis India and China’s fossil-fuel consumption (and consequent contribution to global warming) and possible responses from the US.
1. China and India are less locked into fossil fuels than is the United States, and as Brazil has done they will take the lead in moving [...]