Wall Street Journal examines India's public health infrastructure

The Wall Street Journal and the newspaper's "India Real Time" blog published stories on Saturday examining India's health care system. "Indian government officials say the country's public health infrastructure is sorely deficient, but they argue it is improving because of several initiatives underway," the blog reports. "They acknowledge the government has spent too little - around 1 percent of gross domestic product - on public health. But they say India will likely double that proportion to at least 2 percent in the five-year plan beginning in 2012," the blog notes (Anand/Sahni/Sharma, 7/30).

"The nation faces a health crisis on two fronts, experts say. Not only has it failed to solve developing-world health problems such as high infant mortality and malaria, but now it also faces a sharp rise in rich-country health problems, such as diabetes," according to the newspaper (Sharma/Anand/Bahree, 7/30).