**page** [inside]KEY TRENDS of the Union Budget 2023-24[/inside] Budget 2023-24 is the last full budget before the general election scheduled for 2024. An analysis of the budget allocations suggests that the union government has squeezed expenditure, particularly on food subsidy and the NREGA budget, while boosting Capital expenditure and giving the middle class tax benefits. Social sector activists working on Right to Food, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) came out with...

KEY TRENDS   • During 2014-15, while procurement of foodgrains (rice and wheat) increased from 56.9 million tonnes to 60.2 million tonnes, offtake of foodgrains (rice and wheat) from the PDS decreased from 59.8 million tonnes to 55.9 million tonnes. Despite increased availability in the PDS and prevalence of high inflation in foodgrains, dependence on the PDS is reducing, suggesting that there may be issues of availability, timely availability and quality of the PDS foodgrains...

-The Hindu People coming from abroad have to undergo two different medical checks and are being stamped at the second screening point Delhi has begun stamping the forearms of people, who have been advised home quarantine in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak. In a crackdown on people who have been advised home quarantine but are found travelling/mingling in public, authorities have begun stamping the hands of people with an indelible ink similar...

-The Hindu Spraying of disinfectants on human beings is ineffective and also harmful, it says in circular Chennai: The Directorate of Public Health (DPH) has issued a note calling into question the efficacy of sanitisation tunnels, and said no more such tunnels are to be installed in Tamil Nadu. With disinfection tunnels being set up in public places in some parts of the State, K. Kolandaswamy, director of public health, in a circular...

-The Indian Express What makes the elderly especially vulnerable to the virus? James Diaz, a professor at Louisiana State University’s School of Public Health, has hypothesised that the reason could lie in the victims’ medications. Across the world, the novel Coronavirus has killed elderly people the most, especially those with pre-existing medical conditions such as heart disease. According to the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the fatality rate from COVID-19 is...