Social priorities have received scant fiscal attention There is good reason to feel let down by this year’s budget for the advancement of social sectors. The disappointment is more given that the Union finance minister opened his speech by stating that “we are reaching the end of a remarkable fiscal year” and followed it up by immediate assertions that “growth in 2010-11 has been swift and broad-based”, that “the economy...

The Union budget writes off Rs.240 crore in corporate income tax every single day on average — the same amount leaves India each day in illicit fund flows to foreign banks. In six years from 2005-06, the Government of India wrote off corporate income tax worth Rs.3,74,937 crore — more than twice the 2G fraud — in successive Union budgets. The figure has grown every single year for which data are...

This article documents and then examines the various benefits that, it is claimed, will flow from linking the Unique Identity number with the public distribution system and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It filters the unfounded claims, which arise from a poor understanding of how the PDS and NREGS function, from the genuine ones. On the latter, there are several demanding conditions that need to be met in order...

The Italian phrase "lascia il tempo que trova" (it leaves the air it finds) does a better job of describing Pranab Mukherjee's budget than India's corporate media would ever dare to do. To put it mildly, the budget this year, is yet again, an utter disappointment for the food and agriculture sectors. To begin with, flagship schemes like the midday meals and the Integrated Child Development Services did not, unlike in...

Budgets are no longer statements of accounts or expenditure. In the contemporary context, they are to be seen more as a statement of intent, ambition, reform and politics of inclusion. If these are the parameters on which Budget 2011 is to be judged, it fails despite an implicit statement of intent. For a government which has been elected on the agenda of inclusion, even the statement of intent is not new....