-Outlook Corporate karza maafi reaches new heights, social spending new lows This year's budget write-off in customs duty on gold, diamonds and jewellery (all aam aadmi items, of course) is Rs 75,592 crore. That's well over twice the "record" amount allocated to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. As Prof Jayati Ghosh points out, the MNREGA has given billions of person-days of work to tens of millions of poor...

-Livemint.com Govt will be judged on how it deals with the crisis; recognizing the problem is the first step, but a lot depends on how it executes the rescue The bout of unseasonal rainfall in north India over the last few weeks has triggered fears that standing Rabi crop may have suffered extensive damage. It may or may not be true. Regardless, it has once again put the spotlight on the agriculture...

-The Hindu Business Line Chennai: The Fourteenth Finance Commission has formulated its recommendations without any reference to the distinction between Plan and non-Plan outlays. This will facilitate greater attention to maintenance expenditure, and reduce incentives to boost capital works and show large-sized plans, said YV Reddy, Chairman of the Commission and former Governor of the RBI. Delivering the Raja J Chelliah Memorial Lecture at the Madras School of Economics on Monday, Reddy...

The India Country Report 2015 on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comes at a time when the Union Budget 2015-16 allegedly cut expenditure on several social sector schemes and programmes. This year's MDG country report says that India will fail to achieve two important targets pertaining to reducing hunger and maternal mortality by 2015, among others. Released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the report says that India is...

-The Indian Express Unused priority sector lending funds of commercial banks will be used to set up the Rs 20,000 crore corpus of the proposed MUDRA Bank. The bank will use at least 65 per cent of its funds for lending to micro enterprises run by members of scheduled castes and tribes. Typically, domestic commercial banks deposit their lending shortfall from priority sector to the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund of the NABARD...