UP, Bihar LS bypoll on Mar. 11, results Mar. 14

■ Among smaller states, Mizoram ranked first followed by Manipur, Goa

The Election Commission on Friday announced bypolls to two Lok Sabha seats. in Uttar Pradesh and one in Bihar on March 11. The results will be declared on March 14. In UP, the bypolls will be held on Gorakhpur, vacated by chief minister Yogi Adityanath, and Phulpur, vacated by deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. The Araria seat in Bihar fell vacant following the death of RJD MP Mohammed Taslimuddin.

There is speculation that BSP supremo Mayawati may contest the Phulpur Lok Sabha election.

Kerala has emerged on top in terms of overall health performance parameters in the country in Niti Aayog’s Health Index which was released here on Friday. Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, however, was at the bottom of the index among worse performers.

Kerala was followed by Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, according to the report — “Healthy States, Progressive India: Report on Rank of States and UTs”.

Rajasthan, Bihar and Odisha are among those which have performed poorly on the index.

In terms of annual incremental performance, Jharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh are the top three states. These three states showed the maximum gains in indicators such as neonatal mortality rate ( NMR), under- five mortality rate ( U5MR), full immunisation coverage, institutional deliveries.

Among the smaller states, Mizoram ranked first followed by Manipur and Goa.

Releasing the report, Niti CEO Amitabh Kant said the Government think tank believes that the health index will act as a tool to leverage cooperative and competitive federalism, accelerating the pace of achieving health outcomes.

“By June this year, we would take out the ranking of 730 district hospitals based on their performance. We want to encourage the good performers and name and shame those who don’t,” he informed.

Niti Aayog member Vinod Kumar Paul said that absolute and incremental changes in health outcomes, as measured by the health index, promote cross- learning between states, capturing the very spirit of cooperative & competitive federalism.

Health and family welfare secretary Preeti Sudan said her ministry will soon announce the linked incentives for states which have performed better on health index.

According to a Niti Aayog statement, the ranking was done under three categories — larger states, smaller states and union territories to ensure comparison among similar entities.

The three indicators which were factored while ranking the states are Health Outcomes ( 70 per cent), Governance and Information ( 12 per cent) and Key Inputs and Processes ( 18 per cent), with each domain assigned a weight based on its importance.

The statement said that there was a large gap in overall performance between the best and the least performing states and UTs.

“In the reference year ( 2015- 16) among the larger states, the index scope for overall performances ranged widely between 33.69 in Uttar Pradesh to 76.55 in Kerala,” it said.

Uttar Pradesh may be lying at the bottom of the table, however it along with Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir was among the top three ranking states in terms of annual incremental performance.