-Business Today Social sector spending and investments in Infrastructure development could be the highlights of the forthcoming Union Budget 2018-19, credit rating agency ICRA forecasts. It expects increase in budgetary allocations for social Infrastructure and social security spending, such as NREGA (rural job security), food subsidy (food security), insurance schemes and welfare pensions. Larger allocations for Infrastructure related to cold chains, etc., considered to boost the agricultural sector and the rural...

-The Economic Times Just after Prime Minister Narendra Modi showcased a democratic and developing India to the global leaders at the annual meet of World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland, India's former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan punctured Modi's India pitch. Modi said,"In India, 'Democracy, Demography and Dynamism' together are shaping the country's destiny and leading it towards the path of Devepolment." He also said, "Our Mantra is 'Reform, Perform And Transform." However,...

-The Telegraph The Left in Bengal had often criticised him whenever he red-flagged excessive local tyranny, and spoke about the industrial decline in Bengal. The incumbent ruling party may make tall claims about changes in Bengal since the Trinamul government came to power but he has been candid enough to suggest that he hasn't seen much change either in industrial expansion or in investment in Infrastructure. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has...

-PTI NEW DELHI: With rise in personal disposable income post 7th Pay Commission, the income tax exemption limit needs to be raised by Rs 50,000 to Rs 3 lakh, a SBI report said on Monday. The move will benefit around 75 lakh people, it said. The SBI's Ecowrap report further said that if the exemption limit of interest payments under housing loan is increased to Rs 2.5 lakhs for existing home loan...

-The Hindu Hundreds of government schools, especially in tribal-dominated districts, have been shut down over the past year. Elizabeth Kuruvilla reports on the closures, the mushrooming of private schools, and the battles waged by tribal villages to keep state-funded local schools open It’s a little past four in the afternoon, the time when schools ring their closing bells in the Hatsesikhal cluster of Odisha’s tribal-dominated Rayagada district. Just before Sekhal Primary School...