Modi First Indian PM to Prioritise Universal Health Coverage: The Lancet
New Delhi, Sept 14: A noted UK-based medical journal has said Narendra Modi is India’s first prime minister to prioritise universal health coverage (UHC) as part of his political platform under the ‘Ayushman Bharat’ scheme, even as it added that Congress chief Rahul Gandhi was “yet to match Modicare”.
Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the The Lancet, said the prime minister has grasped the importance of health not only as a natural right of citizens, but also as a political instrument to meet the growing expectations of the emerging middle class of India, which is engulfed in a “swirling epidemic of non-communicable diseases”.
“Rahul Gandhi seeking to resurrect the Congress and prove that India’s greatest political dynasty still has something to offer, despite his promises to help lower castes, tribal communities and rural poor, is yet to match Modicare,” Horton said in an article published in the journal.
The Lancet editor-in-chief asserted that health will be a decisive issue in next year’s general election in the country.
With reference to five India-specific disease burden studies on non-communicable diseases published in The Lancet group of journals on Wednesday, Horton said, “as the BJP and Congress set out competing and contrasting visions for India’s future, health will rightly become a decisive issue in next year’s general election”.
Referring to Gandhi’s statement of “There is a full-blown crisis in India” at the London School of Economics last month, he said the Congress president was referring to a “job crisis”, but the five papers published across three Lancet specialty journals have revealed that there was also a “health crisis” in India.
“After years of neglect, the Indian government has at last recognised the perils of public discontent about health. Under a new initiative called Ayushman Bharat launched this year, Prime Minister Modi has implemented two new flagship programmes.
“Ayushman Bharat has two pillars – the creation of 1,50,000 health and wellness centres across the country to provide a spine of primary care facilities to deliver universal health coverage; and the National Health Protection Mission (NHPM), a health insurance aimed at providing coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family annually, thus benefiting more than 10 crore poor families,” said the article.
“Together, these twin programmes should improve access to quality health services and reduce out-of-pocket health expenditures,” it said.
Horton in the article said Modi’s stated goal is to build a new India by 2022.
“Rahul Gandhi has spoken about a ‘modernising impulse’ in India and the possibility of ‘a transformation of 1.3 billion people’. Modi has grasped the importance of health not only as a natural right for India’s citizens, but also as a political instrument to meet the growing expectations of India’s emerging middle class.
“Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister to prioritise universal health coverage as part of his political platform. Rahul Gandhi, despite his promises to help lower castes, tribal communities, and the rural poor, has yet to match Modicare,” the article said.
Horton said the five Lancet papers have also revealed a dangerously rapid epidemiological transition with Ischaemic heart disease being the leading individual cause of disease burden in India, while the contribution of cardiovascular diseases to total deaths has almost doubled since 1990.
“While India is engulfed in this swirling epidemic of non-communicable diseases, the country is also in the grip of a mental health emergency. India could claim 18% of the world’s population in 2016, yet it accounted for 37% of global suicide deaths among women and 24% among men,” the article added.
Courtesy: thewire.in
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
US SC rejects 26/11 attack accused Tahawwur Rana’s plea seeking stay on his extradition to India
New York, Apr 7 (PTI): The US Supreme Court has rejected 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana's appeal seeking a stay on his extradition to India, moving him closer to being handed over to Indian authorities to face justice.
Rana, 64, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, is currently lodged at a metropolitan detention centre in Los Angeles.
He is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 attacks. Headley conducted a recce of Mumbai before the attacks by posing as an employee of Rana’s immigration consultancy.
Rana had submitted an ‘Emergency Application For Stay Pending Litigation of Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus' on February 27, 2025, with Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit Elena Kagan.
Kagan had denied the application earlier last month.
Rana had then renewed his ‘Emergency Application for Stay Pending Litigation of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus previously addressed to Justice Kagan’, and requested that the renewed application be directed to US Chief Justice John Roberts.
An order on the Supreme Court website noted that Rana's renewed application had been “distributed for Conference” on April 4 and the “application” has been “referred to the Court.”
A notice on the Supreme Court website Monday said that “Application denied by the Court.”
Rana was convicted in the US of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to the terrorist plot in Denmark and one count of providing material support to Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashker-e-Taiba which was responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.
New York-based Indian-American attorney Ravi Batra had told PTI that Rana had made his application to the Supreme Court to prevent extradition, which Justice Kagan denied on March 6. The application was then submitted before Roberts, “who has shared it with the Court to conference so as to harness the entire Court’s view.”
The Supreme Court justices are Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
In his emergency application, Rana had sought a stay of his extradition and surrender to India pending litigation (including exhaustion of all appeals) on the merits of his February 13.
In that petition, Rana argued that his extradition to India violates US law and the UN Convention Against Torture "because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, the petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture."
"The likelihood of torture in this case is even higher though as petitioner faces acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the Mumbai attacks,” the application said.
The application also said that his “severe medical conditions” render extradition to Indian detention facilities a “de facto" death sentence in this case.
The US Supreme Court denied Rana's petition for a writ of certiorari relating to his original habeas petition on January 21. The application notes that on that same day, newly-confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio had met with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Washington on February 12 to meet with Trump, Rana’s counsel received a letter from the Department of State, stating that “on February 11, 2025, the Secretary of State decided to authorise” Rana’s "surrender to India,” pursuant to the “Extradition Treaty between the United States and India”.
Rana’s Counsel requested from the State Department the complete administrative record on which Secretary Rubio based his decision to authorize Rana’s surrender to India.
The Counsel also requested immediate information of any commitment the United States has obtained from India with respect to Rana’s treatment. “The government declined to provide any information in response to these requests,” the application said.
It added that given Rana’s underlying health conditions and the State Department’s findings regarding the treatment of prisoners, it is very likely “Rana will not survive long enough to be tried in India".
During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Modi in the White House in February, President Donald Trump announced that his administration has approved the extradition of "very evil" Rana, wanted by Indian law enforcement agencies for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, "to face justice in India”.
A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege, attacking and killing people at iconic and vital locations in Mumbai.
