Policy Wise

The Economist has an article on the quacks practicing in Delhi,
Ten years ago Delhi’s state government drew up an “Anti-Quackery Bill” of which nothing more was heard. But the real problem is less the quacks themselves than the health-care vacuum in which they flourish. India’s private health business is booming, importing flashy technology to serve [...]

Kanpur Medical college is experimenting with distance education,
The students of GSVM Medical college could soon access all the important lectures of the expert professors of AIIMS and Chandigarh PGI in their own college, thanks to distance learning.With country’s medical colleges facing a shortage of teachers, the Central government is planning to connect them through distance [...]

In a hard-hitting article, Devesh Kapoor argues that the World Bank should stop bankrolling countries like India which consistently perform low on education and public health,

In India’s case, the state’s inability to discharge this most basic obligation to its citizens in education and health, even as it [...]

In an op-ed in Economic Times, Arvind Panagariya tells the story of Indian rural health crisis. He then provides some policy prescriptions,
This can be best accomplished by providing the poor cash transfers for out-patient care and insurance for in-patient care. Once this is done, a competitive price must be charged for services provided at [...]

Policy Wise has argued previously that ”it is the dynamics of competition whose benefits are likely to be far more relevant in assessing the overall net benefits of NANO”. Barely a month after the launch of Nano, TATA group has announced its support for a car which would run on compressed air with zero emissions.
The [...]

A new study by the World health organization warns that smoking could potentially kill one billion people in the 21st century. An article in The Economist details some of the challenges governments face in attempting to control smoking especially in the developing world,
The practical argument for action is simpler: the tobacco industry is getting the [...]

April Harding at the Global Health Policy blog responds to the Economist article (linked here) and makes a few telling comments,
As noted in The Economist, the interventions assessed included simultaneous free distribution of bednets and free distribution of artemisinin drugs – the highly-effective malaria treatment. So these reviews do not shed light on the [...]

A story in the Economist questions the conventional wisdom that giving away free goods is not the best way to advance public policy,
Dr Kochi and his team reviewed antimalaria operations in Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda and Zambia, looking mainly at under-fives, who are most threatened by the disease. WHO says that over 1m people die each [...]

(Co authored with Pratik Mhatre.)

It is time the issue of urban transport is addressed in a holistic manner.
Five years ago, Ratan Tata made a tryst with destiny. He promised a car for Rs one lakh-a people’s car-and he has delivered. The new Tata Nano has been widely praised for its indigenous design, engineering skills [...]