Policy Watch: Governance and Development– January 2020

With this January Issue on Governance and Development theme, Policy Watch enters its ninth volume. Health system in India is characterised by shifting disease burden and a low public spending, limited institutional capability, inadequate manpower, geographical disparities and rural urban dichotomy.

The first article is “A Critical Overview of the Health System in India” by Yuvraj Kalia. He highlights key issues in the system, from policy, access and financing, surveillance and awareness, human resources, and health research in the country with a focus on public sector. In addition, there is an article by Dr Amir Ullah Khan and Saleema Razvi on “How India must tackle China’s killer bug”. It gives a practical strategy to avoid threats from potential pandemics emanating from coronavirus and the like.

It has been more than a decade since education became a justiciable right in India. Within rights based approach to social policy, the third article by Arnab Bose assesses the difference that this legislation has made with a focus on what the bottlenecks are and what can be done to remove them. The article “RTE after a Decade: An Assessment of Bottlenecks” is part of the larger effort to understand the impact the rights based legislations have made in India. It is followed with a factsheet on financing of school education in India.

Within Samarth Zilla framework developed by RGICS, the progress of implementation in Bastar and a perspective on culture of the region is provided in the fourth article “Samarth Bastar and preservation of Indigenous Culture” by Vijay Nadkarni. It is an earnest attempt at understanding what indigenous culture of Bastar is and what can be done to nurture it for the benefit of people there and for human civilization.