-The Telegraph New Delhi: Projected work under the rural job guarantee scheme for 2016-17 is down 10 per cent after a rare boost in the last financial year, suggesting a tightening of the purse strings following a year of heavy expenditure on the programme. The rural development ministry has approved the generation of 217 crore person-days of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, following last year's approval for...

-The Hindu Business Line The priority for this government is to promote the medical care market, not ensure universal healthcare for the majority Those at the helm of policymaking in the country have been, for some time, strongly advocating austerity as the principle for public expenditure policies, particularly for the social sectors. Arvind Panagariya, the vice-chairperson of the NITI Aayog, suggests that “for just three-quarters of a per cent of the GDP”, 0.76...

-Livemint.com One year after the implementation of 14th Finance Commission recommendations, 14 states have cut back on rural spending New Delhi: At a time when everybody is talking about rural distress, it seems many state governments have decided to turn their back on farmers. Data from the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Analysis of State Budgets report shows that 14 out of 31 states cut their rural spending in 2015-16 compared...

-Livemint.com The quality of output and influence in policymaking have been disappointing In order to give a flavour of how important think tanks in Washington DC have been to the policymakers, Peter W. Singer, an American political scientist, once wrote: “...when President Reagan took office in 1981, he quickly gave every member of his cabinet an 1,100-page book from the Heritage Foundation, Mandate for Leadership, that provided an outline for conservative principles...

-The Hindu Structural reforms and improving productive capacity can enhance long-term growth NITI Aayog, the government’s policy think tank, is working on a sector-based medium-term planning framework, Union Finance Secretary Ratan P. Watal told a meeting of state finance secretaries on Monday. The new planning framework could replace five-year plans, the last of which is set to end in 2016—17, Mr. Watal said. It was possible to synchronise with the finance commission cycle,...