In its 2014 election manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), among other things, promised to "take steps to enhance the profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production". In his 2018-19 Union budget speech too, the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley informed the Parliament that the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP had stated that the farmers should get at least 1.5 times the...

-TheWire.in The national auditor believes that such methods allow the Centre to understate the true fiscal and revenue deficits in a given year. New Delhi: India’s national auditor has raised red flags over the Narendra Modi government’s propensity to borrow funds using “off-budget” methods, a practice that allows it to Finance capital and revenue spending while maintaining deficit targets. The criticism comes from an audit report tabled in parliament on Tuesday, but is...

-TheWire.in In an interview with The Wire, former secretary to the government of India P.S. Krishnan says economically weaker sections require financial aid, not reservation. P.S. Krishnan, the former secretary to government of India, was one of the crucial people behind the enactment of several historic laws regarding social justice. The current Bill proposed by the government to provide reservation to economically weaker upper castes in jobs and education, he says, violates...

-The Hindu Business Line If the Centre had stuck to its ‘minimum government’ promise, it may have met the note-ban goals – without the pain In a New Year’s Day interview to a news agency, Prime Minister Narendra Modi revisited his government’s demonetisation move of November 2016. Perhaps this was born of the realisation that the notebandi decision and its impact on the economy would likely define the NDA government’s term in...

-The Hindu A majority of men in Bogidari in Chirang district have worked at some point in Meghalaya’s coal mines BOGIDARI: Mohammad Hussain Sheikh recalls how a letter from the sirdar (manager and mine supervisor) of a Meghalaya coal mine in 2002 had helped him heave a big sigh of relief. It simply read: “You are hired. Come before the season starts in a few days.” Mr. Sheikh, now 48, was desperate...