We begin with a call for justice from the McClatchy Washington Bureau:
ACLU, Human Rights Watch urge Obama to prosecute officials over CIA torture
President Barack Obama should appoint a special prosecutor to determine if former Bush administration and CIA officials broke the law by having suspected terrorists abducted and tortured in secret prisons by waterboarding and other brutal interrogation methods, two leading human rights groups said Monday.
The call by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union was the second proposal for a special investigation issued from a human rights organization since the publication earlier this month of a blistering Senate Intelligence Committee report into the CIA interrogation program that ran from 2002 until 2007.
“We believe the failure to conduct a comprehensive criminal investigation would contribute to the notion that torture remains a permissible policy option for future administrations; undermine the ability of the United States to advocate for human rights abroad, and compromise Americans’ faith in rule of law at home,” Human Rights Watch and the ACLU wrote in a joint letter to Obama.
From the New York Times, getting malled:
Chanting ‘Black Lives Matter,’ Protesters Shut Down Part of Mall of America
A mass of demonstrators chanting “Black lives matter” converged in the Mall of America rotunda on Saturday as part of a protest against police brutality that caused at least part of the mall to shut down on a busy day for holiday shopping.
The group Black Lives Matter Minneapolis had more than 3,000 people confirm on Facebook that they would attend. Official crowd estimates were not immediately available, but pictures posted to social media by local news organizations showed the rotunda was full. The organizer of the demonstration, Mica Grimm, estimated that about 3,000 people participated.
The Mall of America increased security, and certain parts of the mall were closed for some time. Signs were posted at some entrances advising shoppers that the east side of the mall was on lockdown.
There were no official reports on arrests, but Ms. Grimm said she knew of at least five people who had been arrested.
From the Guardian, a hack to cause real worries:
South Korean nuclear operator hacked amid cyber-attack fears
Operator begins two-day exercise after suspected hacker tweets information on KHNP plants and its staff
South Korea’s nuclear plant operator has said its computer systems have been breached, raising fears that hackers, including those with possible North Korean links, could shift their focus to key infrastructure.
The violation prompted a safety drill on Monday at nuclear plants around the country. The precautionary exercise comes days after the US blamed Pyongyang for hacking Sony Pictures, which led the company to cancel the release of a Hollywood satire about the fictional assassination of the secretive state’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
North Korea has denied responsibility for the hack and threatened to retaliate if the White House continued to blame it. Pyongyang said there was “clear evidence” the Obama administration was behind the film.
More from Britain’s Channel 4 News:
Hackers threaten South Korea nuclear firm
A threat is made to “stay away” from nuclear reactors in South Korea unless the government shuts three down before Christmas, after a cyber-attack on the power company running them.
Last week, designs and manuals of plant equipment owned by the state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power company (KHNP) were leaked online.
A threat was made that unless three reactors were closed by Christmas, people should “stay away” from them.
The cyber-attacks come amid concerns that North Korea may attempt hacking industrial and social targets after accusations by the United States that Pyongyang was responsible for hacking Sony Pictures.
South Korea is still technically at war with the North.
And still more from Al Jazeera America:
South Korea steps up cybersecurity at nuclear plants
Decision comes after hackers attack company that runs South Korea’s 23 nuclear power reactors
South Korea boosted cybersecurity at the country’s nuclear power plants on Tuesday following what President Park Geun-hye described as a series “grave” data leaks, and as prosecutors said they were investigating a new online threat.
Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP), which runs South Korea’s 23 nuclear power reactors, said on Monday its computer systems had been hacked, raising alarm in a country that is still technically at war with North Korea, amid signs that Pyongyang is mounting a growing cyberoffensive with international adversaries to the south and west.
Seoul on Tuesday raised the cybercrisis alert by one level for all the state-run companies, from attention to caution.
From the Independent, a look inside:
Inside Isis: The first Western journalist ever given access to the ‘Islamic State’ has just returned – and this is what he discovered
The first Western journalist in the world to be allowed extensive access to Isis territories in Syria and Iraq has returned from the region with a warning: the group is “much stronger and much more dangerous” than anyone in the West realises.
Jürgen Todenhöfer, 74, is a renowned German journalist and publicist who travelled through Turkey to Mosul, the largest city occupied by Isis, after months of negotiations with the group’s leaders.
Isis’s fighters themselves sleep, he said, in barracks formed from “the shells of bombed-out houses”. They number around 5,000 in Mosul, and are spread so widely that were the US to bomb them all “they would have to reduce the whole of Mosul to ruins”, he said.
Todenhöfer says that this ultimately means Isis cannot be beaten by Western intervention or air strikes – despite US claims last week that they have proven effective. “With every bomb that is dropped and hits a civilian, the number of terrorists increases,” he said.
Speaking in a TV interview with RTL’s Nachtjournal programme two days after his return to Germany last week, Todenhöfer said Isis has worked hard to establish itself as a functioning state. He said it has “social welfare”, a “school system”, and that he was even surprised to see it has plans to provide education to girls.
From BBC News, trouble in France:
‘Allahu Akbar’ attacker shot by French police
Police in central France have shot dead a man who attacked them with a knife while shouting “God is great!” in Arabic, French media report.
The man injured three police officers at Joue-les-Tours police station near the city of Tours before he was shot.
The assailant was a Burundi-born French national with a criminal record, a source close to the investigation told France’s AFP news agency.
Anti-terrorism investigators were sent to the scene, the source added.
Deutsche Welle covers another incident:
France: Driver shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ ploughs car into pedestrians in Dijon
A driver has been arrested after ramming his car into groups of people in the eastern French city of Dijon whilst shouting “Allahu Akbar” or “God is greatest.” 11 people were injured in the incident.
Two of the 11 victims are reported to be in a “serious condition.”
The 40-year-old alleged attacker is reported to have driven his car into pedestrians in five locations around the city and to have done so in the name of the “children of Palestine.” However a source close to the investigation told AFP news agency that “for now his motives are still unclear.”
The attack on Sunday evening attack came the day after a French convert to Islam was shot dead after attacking three police officers with a knife, while also reportedly crying “Allahu Akbar” in the central town of Joue-les-Tours.
And another incident from BBC News:
France attack: Van driven into shoppers in Nantes
A van has been driven at shoppers at a French Christmas market in the city of Nantes and the driver is reported to have stabbed himself, officials say.
Ten people are reported to have been injured, five seriously.
The exact circumstances remain unclear, but the incident comes only a day after pedestrians were run down in Dijon.
The driver of that vehicle screamed “God is great” in Arabic. On Saturday, police shot dead a man using the same phrase in Tours after he attacked them.
And the inevitable response in a country where the military regularly appeared armed in public on internal security duties, via the Guardian:
Soldiers to be deployed around France after string of attacks on public
Announcement that up to 300 troops will keep the peace follows incidents in Nantes, Dijon and Tours
Up to 300 soldiers will be deployed around France to beef up security after three separate incidents in as many days left more than 20 people injured, including three police officers.
Patrols by police and gendarmes will also be stepped up in areas where the public is deemed to be at risk.
France’s prime minister, Manuel Valls, announced the deployment after a crisis meeting at Matignon, his official residence.
The decision came shortly after the French president, François Hollande, announced that one victim of an attack on Monday evening, in which a man drove into a crowd of shoppers at a Christmas market in Nantes, has been declared clinically dead. Nine other Christmas shoppers were injured.
From the Independent, a domestic alarm:
FBI warns of possible IS threat to bridge over Mississippi
Are Islamist extremists looking to attack an historic bridge in the American heartland?
Federal agents have warned local authorities that Islamic State militants may be seeking to would blow up the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge which spans the Mississippi River.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had passed the threat on to local police in a bulletin out of an “abundance of caution”, spokesman Chris Allen told the Associated Press.
“This is an unsubstantiated, anonymous threat,” he said, adding that there was no useful intelligence arising from it. The threat to the bridge was first reported by the reported by Fox13 television news channel in Memphis.
While the Guardian covers the rising reaction in Germany:
Record 17,000 join ‘Pinstripe Nazi’ anti-Islam march in Germany
Many in Berlin shocked by emergence of far-right anti-Islamist group Pegida as growing numbers join weekly Dresden protest
A record 17,000 people have joined the latest in a string of demonstrations against Islam in Dresden, eastern Germany, celebrating the rise of their far-right populist movement by singing Christmas carols.
The march on Monday night was organised by Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West – a group that has grown rapidly since its first protest in October.
Politicians from all major parties have been stunned by the emergence of the right-wing nationalists who vent their anger against what they consider a broken immigration and asylum system.
About 4,500 counter-demonstrators marched through the city under the slogan “Dresden Nazi-free”, warning that there was no space for racism and xenophobia in the country that perpetrated the Holocaust.
And Monday’s follow-up Guardian headline:
Germany’s ‘pinstripe Nazis’ plan more anti-Islam marches in new year
Authorities promise to keep close eye on demos that have attracted increasing numbers of people since October
Demonstrations against Islam that have attracted thousands to the streets of Dresden in east Germany are set to continue in the New Year, with organisers announcing plans for a protest on 5 January.
Although authorities have said there is nothing they can do to prevent further protests, a spokesman for Germany’s interior ministry said it would be keeping a close eye on the demonstrations, which have attracted increasing numbers of people since they began in October.
On to the spooky from with the Washington Post:
German researchers discover a flaw that could let anyone listen to your cell calls
German researchers have discovered security flaws that could let hackers, spies and criminals listen to private phone calls and intercept text messages on a potentially massive scale – even when cellular networks are using the most advanced encryption now available.
The flaws, to be reported at a hacker conference in Hamburg this month, are the latest evidence of widespread insecurity on SS7, the global network that allows the world’s cellular carriers to route calls, texts and other services to each other. Experts say it’s increasingly clear that SS7, first designed in the 1980s, is riddled with serious vulnerabilities that undermine the privacy of the world’s billions of cellular customers.
The flaws discovered by the German researchers are actually functions built into SS7 for other purposes – such as keeping calls connected as users speed down highways, switching from cell tower to cell tower – that hackers can repurpose for surveillance because of the lax security on the network.
From Techdirt, but of course:
Snowden, Poitras & Others Sued For ‘Billions Of Dollars’ Spent By US Government In Response To Leaks
from the not-a-ton-of-crazy-in-the-filing,-but-not-a-ton-of-right,-either dept
Horace B. Edwards, Navy veteran and former Secretary of Transportation for the state of Kansas, is suing Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and a handful of “Hollywood Defendants” for profiteering from the distribution of “stolen documents.” This is supposedly being done on “behalf of the American people” (“John and Jane Does 1-10″ listed in the “Plaintiffs” field).
What Edwards is seeking is a court-ordered “constructive trust,” financed by the proceeds of Laura Poitras’ Snowden documentary “CitizenFour,” to offset the financial damage caused by the leaked documents.
This is an action on behalf of the American people to seek prompt imposition of the Supreme Court’s essential financial remedy–a constructive trust–to redress unjust enrichment by ensuring that ill-gotten gains are disgorged… This relief does not infringe upon First Amendment rights but maintains a reasonable balance between national security and the fundamental Constitutional protections of Freedom of the Press. No censorship occurs and no public access is restrained…
Upon information and belief, through this charade in the film, “Citizenfour,” a fugitive senior intelligence official, e.g. CIA/NSA/DIA, together with the “Hollywood Defendants,” intentionally violate obligations owed to the American people, misuse purloined information disclosed to foreign enemies, and covet financial gain for their misconduct.
After the jump, on to the Sony hack and a spooky consultation, Pyongyang warns Washington, Washington mulls retribution, hints of an act of retaliation, more threats from Pyongyang, Beijing calls for a time out, a Democrat calls for details, and the once-slain comedy gains a minimalist resurrection, Facebook blocks a Putin critic and the BBC fears losing the media war to Russia’s RT, civilian drone anxieties in Washington, Pakistani continues its hanging spree, China builds another island base to control contested seas and Chinese ships cross a line in the water, China, South Korea increasingly unpopular in Japan, Tokyo/Seoul World War II forced labor talks, and a true case of domestic insecurity as India slashes costs for its stricken health system. . .
Keeping on message, via the Intercept:
Sony Hack: Clooney Says Movie is about Snowden, Not Journalism
In March of 2014, Sony officially optioned the rights to [Glenn] Greenwald’s book, which chronicles how he broke the Snowden story, and moved forward with plans for a movie.
A month later, Pascal sent an email to a fellow Sony executive with the “fabulous slate” of tentative movie releases. The “Snowden movie” would be scheduled for 2016, between Pineapple Express 2 and the comic book film Bloodshot. Greenwald’s agreement with Sony gave him “creative input” and “final approval” on the press release for the movie.
A draft of the release was sent to a senior executive in Sony’s Government Affairs office, Keith Weaver, who offered a few “concerns/edits” before they were sent to Greenwald. Weaver was concerned about how Sony described U.S. government spying. Weaver wrote:
1. In the first sentence of the second paragraph – delete the phrase “illegal spying” and either it [sic] simply as “operations” or replace it with “intelligence gathering” — so the clause would read “U.S. government’s intelligence gathering operations.”
2. In the second sentence of the second paragraph — delete the “phrase misuse of power” and replace it with “actions” or “activities” so that it would read “The NSA’s actions” or “the NSA’S activities.”
Pyongyang warns Washington, via the New York Times:
North Korea Warns U.S. Not to Take Sony Action
Warning of “serious consequences” if the United States retaliates against it over the damaging cyberattack on Sony Pictures, North Korea on Saturday insisted that it was not behind it, and it offered to prove its innocence by taking part in a joint investigation with Washington to identify the hackers.
The message, attributed to an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman and carried by North Korea’s state-run news service, appeared to be the secretive government’s response to President Obama’s statement the day before that the United States would take action in response to the hacking, which has shaken one of Hollywood’s largest studios.
American officials said the hackers’ methods and other clues had led them to conclude that North Korea was behind the attack, which resulted in the posting online of confidential Sony emails and some unreleased movies.
Washington mulls retribution, via BBC News:
Sony hack: US mulls putting N Korea back on terror list
President Barack Obama has said the US is considering putting North Korea back on its list of terrorism sponsors after the hacking of Sony Pictures.
A decision would be taken after a review, he said, calling the attack an act of cyber-vandalism, not of war.
In a CNN interview, President Obama described the hacking as a “very costly, very expensive” example of cyber-vandalism. He said US officials would examine all the evidence to determine whether North Korea should be put back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Hints of an act of retaliation, via the Washington Post:
North Korea’s Internet is going suspiciously haywire
North Korea was having a bit of trouble getting online on Monday. Actually, “a bit” is probably an understatement. What little Internet infrastructure the country has is suffering from widespread outages right now, according to North Korea watchers.
The connectivity problems are coming just days after President Obama warned of a “proportional response” to North Korea, which is suspected of breaking into Sony’s network in a major cyber hack. It’s not yet known whether the United States is responsible for the downtime. But according to Dyn Research — which earlier this year bought the respected network analysis firm Renesys — North Korea’s Internet is currently showing unusual amounts of instability.
Is this an attack? The chances aren’t zero, considering that the few North Koreans who can actually get online tend to be government and military officials. Even if the outages are the result of somebody’s deliberate act, however, proving that the United States did it would be difficult.
More from the New York Times:
Attack Is Suspected as North Korean Internet Collapses
North Korea’s already tenuous links to the Internet went completely dark on Monday after days of instability, in what Internet monitors described as one of the worst North Korean network failures in years.
The loss of service came just days after President Obama pledged that the United States would launch a “proportional response” to the recent attacks on Sony Pictures, which government officials have linked to North Korea. While an attack on North Korea’s networks was suspected, there was no definitive evidence of it.
Doug Madory, the director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, an Internet performance management company, said that North Korean Internet access first became unstable late Friday. The situation worsened over the weekend, and by Monday, North Korea’s Internet was completely offline.
“Their networks are under duress,” Mr. Madory said. “This is consistent with a DDoS attack on their routers,” he said, referring to a distributed denial of service attack, in which attackers flood a network with traffic until it collapses under the load.
More threats from Pyongyang, via BBC News:
Sony hack: North Korea threatens US as row deepens
North Korea has threatened unspecified attacks on the US in an escalation of a war of words following the Sony Pictures cyber-attacks.
In a fiery statement, the North warned of strikes against the White House, Pentagon and “the whole US mainland”.
North Korea denies US claims it is behind cyber-attacks linked to a film that features the fictional killing of its leader Kim Jong-un.
North Korea has a long history of issuing threats against the US.
China calls for a time out, via the Los Angeles Times:
As North Korea threatens, China says no proof ally behind cyberattack
North Korea’s defense department asserted Sunday that the U.S. government was “deeply involved” in the making of the Sony Pictures comedy “The Interview” and threatened to “blow up” the White House, the Pentagon and other U.S. targets if Washington launched an assault to retaliate for the cyberattack on the studio.
China on Monday disclosed that Foreign Minister Wang Yi had assured U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a phone conversation the previous day that Beijing “opposes all forms of cyberattacks and cyber terrorism.”
But ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying cautioned against “making any conclusions” about who was responsible for the Sony cyberattack before there has been a full accounting of the facts.
“China will handle it in accordance with relevant international and Chinese laws according to the facts,” she told reporters at a Monday briefing in Beijing.
A Democrat calls for details, via the Guardian:
House Democrat seeks full details from Sony on sweeping cyber-attack
Says increasing cyber-attacks pose ‘clear and present danger’ to US security
Sony’s information will be helpful as Congress examines laws, he adds in letter
The top Democrat on the powerful US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked Sony Pictures Entertainment to hand over details of what he describes “the most damaging cyberattack ever inflicted on an American business.”
In a letter sent to Sony on Tuesday, Elijah Cummings – the committee’s ranking minority member – requested information about the hack, which compromised the personal information of more than 47,000 current and former employees as well as revealing embarrassing emails from the studio’s top executives.
“The increasing number and sophistication of cyber attacks on both public and private entities pose a clear and present danger to our national security and highlight the urgent need for greater collaboration to improve data security”, wrote Cummings. “Sony’s knowledge, information, and experience will be helpful as Congress examines federal cybersecurity laws and any necessary improvements to protect sensitive consumer and government financial information.”
And the once-slain comedy gains a minimalist resurrection, via the New York Times:
Sony’s ‘The Interview’ Will Come to Some Theaters After All
Sony Pictures said on Tuesday that it had secured a limited theatrical release for “The Interview” on Christmas Day.
“We have never given up,” Michael Lynton, chief executive of Sony Entertainment, said in a statement. He added that in addition to the limited theatrical release, “We are continuing our efforts to secure more platforms and more theaters so that this movie reaches the largest possible audience.”
Last week, about 80 percent of the theaters in the United States and Canada refused to show “The Interview” in the face of a terror threat. But over the last day Sony reached out to theater owners again, asking if they would rebook the film.
A Putin critic loses Face[book], via the Washington Post:
Facebook blocks Russian page supporting Navalny, Putin’s biggest critic
In a sign of new limits on Facebook’s ability to serve as a platform for political opposition movements, Russian users appear to have been blocked from accessing a page calling for a protest in support of a prominent dissident.
In 2011, Facebook was hailed by opposition movements during the Arab Spring and in Russia as a powerful new tool to spread information beyond the control of repressive governments. That may no longer be the case, at least not in Russia. Russian Internet regulators said Saturday that they had sent Facebook a “demand” that it block access to a page calling for a demonstration in support of Alexei Navalny, the most prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The page was set up on Friday after prosecutors recommended that Navalny be sent to prison for 10 years in a criminal case that critics have said is purely politically motivated. Within hours, the page drew thousands of people who said they were planning to attend, and as of Saturday evening, the number stood at more than 12,300. But it was no longer visible to users inside Russia. “This content is currently unavailable,” the Web site told users who tried to access it from inside the country.
Media angst from the Guardian:
World Service fears losing information war as Russia Today ramps up pressure
Former director calls for more cash to fight propaganda saying BBC is being outgunned by Kremlin-backed news channel
The BBC World Service is being financially outgunned by Russian and Chinese state-owned news channels, its former director Peter Horrocks has warned, amid high-level concerns that Britain and the US are losing a global “information war” with the Kremlin.
Horrocks said ministers should review Britain’s spending overseas and consider freeing up extra World Service funding to combat the wave of Moscow-backed propaganda sweeping Europe.
“Medium to long term there has to be an anxiety about the spending of others compared to what the BBC are putting into it,” Horrocks said. “You can take a view of the overall national interest and things we spend on international influence, like military spending. When you look at that it would take it in a certain direction.”
Civilian drone anxieties in Washington, via the Washington Post:
Drones for Christmas worry the FAA
Santa Claus may travel on a reindeer-powered sleigh, but he’s expected to deliver a ton of high-flying drones this week to teenagers and other amateur aviators, which is making for an anxious yuletide season at the Federal Aviation Administration.
On Monday, the FAA and the drone industry kicked off a public awareness campaign to urge novice drone operators to pay attention to safety and not do dumb things like fly too close to passenger planes, buzz crowds of bystanders on the ground, or get drunk while flying that new remote control helicopter.
While such advice may sound like basic common sense, FAA officials have been grappling recently with a hair-raising number of incidents in which rogue drones have nearly collided with commercial airliners and other aircraft. And they’re worried that the growing popularity and affordability of small consumer drones this Christmas could exacerbate the problem.
Busy gallows in Pakistan from BBC News:
More executions after Peshawar school massacre
Pakistan has hanged four prisoners, the second set of executions since a death penalty moratorium was lifted after the Peshawar school massacre.
The four men were convicted of involvement in a plot to assassinate then President Pervez Musharraf.
One of those executed had dual Pakistani-Russian citizenship.
On Friday, Pakistan executed two convicts. This followed the Taliban attack on the school that left 141 people – 132 of them children – dead.
China builds another island base to control contested seas, via the Japan Times:
Chinese military reportedly building facilities on islands near Senkakus
China’s military is building large-scale facilities on islands near the Senkaku Islands, according to several Chinese sources.
Construction is underway in the Nanji Islands in Zhejiang province, about 300 km to the northwest of the Japanese-controlled Senkakus, which China calls the Diaoyu.
The base is expected to enhance China’s readiness to respond to potential military crises in the area as well as to strengthen surveillance over the air defense identification zone it declared over part of the East China Sea in November 2013, the sources said Sunday.
The sources said that several large radar installations have been built at high points on the main Nanji Island.
Chinese ships cross a line in the water, via NHK WORLD:
2 Chinese ships entered Japanese waters
Two Chinese patrol ships navigated inside Japanese territorial waters off the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Tuesday morning.
Japan Coast Guard says the ships entered Japanese waters northwest of Uotsuri Island around 10 AM, local time.
The ships left the waters about 2 hours later, after Japanese patrol vessels urged them to leave.
The same 2 ships intruded into Japanese territorial waters last Friday.
China, South Korea increasingly unpopular in Japan, via Kyodo News:
Record percentage of Japanese do not “feel friendly” to China, S. Korea
The percentage of Japanese who “do not feel friendly” toward China and South Korea has risen to an all-time high, according to a government poll released Saturday, reflecting the continued impact of strained ties between Japan and the two Asian neighbors due to disagreements over territory and wartime history.
The ratio of people who do not have friendly feelings toward China was up 2.4 percentage points from the previous survey released in November last year to 83.1 percent, while the figure toward South Korea was up 8.4 points to 66.4 percent, the poll results released by the Cabinet Office showed.
In the latest survey, the ratio marked the worst level since the first such poll was carried out in 1978.
History contested, via Kyodo News:
S. Korea, Japan to jointly investigate Korean forced laborers
South Korea and Japan have decided to conduct a joint investigation early next year into about 10 sets of remains of Korean civilians who were forcibly brought to Japan for forced labor during World War II, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
“The joint investigation will be held early next year following Japan’s proposal, which was made after Japan found 12 sets of remains in Iwate Prefecture on Nov. 19,” ministry spokesman Noh Kwang Il said during a press briefing.
South Korean media reports said the investigation will be held next month at the earliest, but Noh did not specify the timing.
And a real source of domestic insecurity from Reuters:
India slashes health budget, already one of the world’s lowest
The Indian government has ordered a cut of nearly 20 percent in its 2014/15 healthcare budget due to fiscal strains, putting at risk key disease control initiatives in a country whose public spending on health is already among the lowest in the world.
Two Health Ministry officials told Reuters on Tuesday that more than 60 billion rupees, or $948 million, has been slashed from their budget allocation of around $5 billion for the financial year ending on March 31.
Despite rapid economic growth over the past two decades, successive governments have kept a tight rein on healthcare expenditure. India spends about 1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on public health, compared to 3 percent in China and 8.3 percent in the United States.
But hopes were high that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was elected in May, would upgrade basic health infrastructure and make medical services more affordable for the poor.
