-Business Standard Those who want to help India's farmers should be working much harder to figure out what they really need It’s election season in India and the money is flowing. Governments in many states have begun waiving tens of millions of dollars’ worth of loans to poor farmers in an effort to buy their loyalty. The argument – widely accepted by politicians and journalists, the demographic groups with the least fiscal...
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What Ails CAG, and What Can Be Done? -BP Mathur
-Centre for Financial Accountability blog The institution of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in India is patterned on the British model. In Britain, The Exchequer & Audit Department Act of 1866 created the office of CAG with a view to strengthen democracy and exercise parliamentary control over national finances. The office of CAG came into being, thanks to the missionary zeal of William Gladstone who was Finance Minister at the time...
More »Under-reporting manual scavengers: Asked to verify, states turn 55,000 to 25,000 -Shalini Nair
-The Indian Express In the recent exercise, State Governments, tasked with verifying 54,929 manual scavengers identified across 170 select districts in stage one of the counting process, have confirmed involvement of only 25,015 people in the job in the final verification stage. New Delhi: State Governments have denied the existence of more than half the number of people identified as being involved in manual scavenging in the course of a Central...
More »Punjab farmers find no solace in farm loan waiver -Sayantan Bera
-Livemint.com The farm loan waiver terms make little sense in Punjab where average landholding is over three times the national average Patiala/ New Delhi: All that Jagdeep Singh wants is a few hours of peaceful sleep. The 24-year-old from Sangatpura village in Punjab’s Patiala district had no clue that the morning of 11 December would change his life forever. At six in the morning that day, he woke up to the sudden...
More »Economists should try farming before opposing loan waiver: Chidambaram
-The Hindu Bengaluru: Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Friday said farm loan waiver is “imperative” given the agrarian crisis in the country and the economists critical of the scheme should do farming on two acres of land for 10 years before commenting on it. “Economists who are criticising farm loan waiver must experience what farming is in this country. Take two acres of land and do farming for 10 years and...
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