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It is commonly opined that decentralisation through Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) can help in creating greater accountability in the Indian healthcare system. Health decentralisation is specially meant for peoples’ participation, increased transparency and a higher degree of accountability to provide comprehensive and quality health services at the grassroots level. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) visualises the provision of decentralised healthcare at the grassroots level. However, this scheme has some lacunas in reaching the needy, especially in the rural parts of India because of an ineffective and non-participatory role of PRIs in decision making. This has been ascribed to a malfunction in creating healthcare awareness and making the procedures complicated and chaotic for the local Panchayats. The article is based on the Indian Council of Medical Research-funded study in the state of Karnataka. It seeks to find out how PRIs are managing the public healthcare system and its success and failure through a qualitative study. The study has shown that some amount of caution is needed in devolving requisite powers to the PRIs within the NRHM. The coordination between Public Health Institute officials and those of PRIs is completely absent and most of the PRI members do not even know about various health schemes.

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The major objectives of libraries are not just providing books. In today's world, the public library has a vital responsibility in providing services to all excluded groups in the society. This study examines the actual services provided by the public libraries to support social inclusion of different communities. This study was conducted using questionnaires in selected libraries in south Karnataka districts. This study has found lack of sufficient awareness about the role of libraries in inclusive development, and a lack of training, among the library staff towards different social inclusion aspects in the studied public libraries. Some of the social inclusion related services like employment information ; information for farmers, special services for senior citizens, training for competitive examinations, SC/ST cell, health information, awareness about community development programmes, awareness about various Govt. schemes are not being frequently provided in any of the studied libraries. Also libraries are facing shortage of fund. The Government also should provide enough autonomy and funds for such special activities.