-The Telegraph New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley today promised gifts for children, women, patients and the poor but slashed his government's funding across the social sectors. Budget outlays for education, health, rural development, social justice and women and children have fallen sharply or remain close to the outlays these sectors had received last year. The allocation for children under the women and child development ministry witnessed the sharpest fall from last...

-The Hindu Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's announcement of new AIIMS-like institutions, tax sops for those who buy health insurance, and Rs. 33,150 crore allocation has given the health sector little to cheer. Though the draft of the government's new national health policy wants public health expenditure to increase to 2.5 per cent of the GDP, the allocation seems insufficient to meet the government's ambitious universal health assurance mission that includes free...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The plan outlay of 2015-16 reflects the compositional shift in the allocations for various Programmes and Schemes in view of high devolution; 42% of Union Taxes, to States as per the recommendation of 14th Finance Commission. Making his Budget Speech while presenting the General Budget 2015-16, the Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley said that consequent to this substantially higher devolution, many schemes on the State...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance Economic Outlook, Prospects and Policy Challenges Macroeconomic fundamentals in 2014-15 have dramatically improved. Highlights are: * Inflation has declined by over 6 percentage points since late 2013. * The current account deficit has declined from a peak of 6.7 percent of GDP (in Q3, 2012-13) to an estimated 1.0 percent in the coming fiscal year. * Foreign portfolio flows have stabilized the rupee, exerting downward pressure on long-term interest...

-Tehelka National Health Policy 2015 draft could end up being a paper tiger Successive governments since the reforms of 1991 have been criticised for low funding on health, lowest in the world. Nearly one percent of India's gross domestic product (GDP) is spent each year on public health. But the new government has pledged to turn the tide around by increasing government spending to 2.5 percent of GDP in the draft health...