Good news for journalists with bad hearts, lungs and kidneys, from the gossip columns of the Sunday papers.
From The Telegraph diary:
Manmohan Singh has decided to extend a helping hand to journalists. The Centre has accepted a long-standing demand by scribes that new health cards be issued to accreditated journalsits.
These health cards will help ailing journos get treatment at leading hospitals in the Delhi and national capital region at heavily subsidised rates.
Congressmen must be hoping that the noble gesture would help tame the torrent of scathing comments about the government’s performance.
Nora Chopra in The Sunday Guardian:
The Manmohan Singh government has accepted the demand of accreditated journalists for health cards. The cards will ensure that they get heavy discounts at leading hospitals such as Fortis, Medanta and Escorts in Delhi and the national capital region.
Whether this ensures good press to the government remains to be seen.
IJR 
“Whether this ensures good press to the government remains to be seen.” – Let’s wait and watch
No political party has divided the country into castes and communities as the Congress Party has done. Now they want to divide journalists into accredited and non-accredited humanity. That automatically excludes the desk people and editorial writers who are supposed to have no lungs or hearts or even a body that would need a repair. It also excludes a majority of reporters who are not accredited. I have seen this tamasha in Delhi for twenty years.
Has the Government ever cared to know how many journalists from the backrooms of newspapers are nominated to bodies like the Press Council? The journalists who languish in anonymity in Government support schemes constitute a big majority. While every journalist is entitled to benefit from government housing schemes, why exclude non-accredited journalists from the health scheme? There is already an ancient friction between the bureau and the desk because the last word on using a report is with the desk. Even the wage boards treat desk men and reporters on the same level. From the Prime Minister onwards to those retired judges who are appointed chairmen of this commission and that have no idea of what a simple concept like news is. What a country, what a people?
Krishnamoorty
What’s stopping the non-accredited journalists from getting an accreditation?
Sam
There is a quota fixed for each newspaper and broadcast media. The stampede for inclusion in the quota generates dirty politics in media offices. You may get accreditation, if you are ready to bathe in the sewer of in-house squabbling.
Krishnamoorty