-The Hindu Bengaluru: In the arid Budnahatti village just beyond Challakere, the four borewells dug to provide villagers with drinking water have started drying up because of consecutive droughts. “There is barely one inch of water yield from here, not enough for everyone in the village. We have requisitioned authorities to drill three more borewells, but we may have to go more than 1,000 feet deep to get some water,” says Eswarappa,...

-IndiaSpend.com Mumbai: As 128 children died of encephalitis in Bihar over 19 days to June 21, 2019, a new study reports that the state’s rural population prefers government investment in public healthcare over roads, jobs and cash transfers. In a survey conducted by the Brookings Institution, an American research group, in an administrative block of Bihar, 3,800 respondents--comprising the poor, less-educated and disadvantaged caste groups--were asked to make a choice: an incremental...

-TheWire.in A counter to the 'Metro Man's' opposition to free metro rides for women in Delhi. Delhi Metro’s former chief, E. Sreedharan, popularly known as the ‘Metro Man,’ recently voiced his displeasure over the Aam Aadmi Party’s decision to make public transport – metro and buses – free for women. His concern was about the economic feasibility of the policy for the Delhi Metro. This is assuming metro to be a ring-fenced...

-Livemint.com How India can put in place policy reforms to raise GDP growth without creating macroeconomic instability Mumbai: The second Narendra Modi government has begun its innings in the midst of a sharp economic slowdown. Economic expansion in the fourth quarter of the previous financial year was at the lowest level in five years—and 2.2 percentage points lower than growth in the first quarter of that year. The recent loss in economic...

-Livemint.com To keep up with the pressure of making headline fiscal deficit numbers look good, the government has increasingly resorted to off-Budget financing for revenue as well as capital spending As with every other Union Budget in the country, all eyes will focus on the fiscal deficit number that India’s new finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman presents on 5 July in her maiden Budget speech. But for many investors and analysts, how that...