Representatives of around 20 civil society organizations and NGOs met the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley as part of pre-budget consultation on social sector on 12 January, 2016. Immediately after the pre-budget consultation, a press conference was held by some of these organizations to convey the media persons what demands/ suggestions were made. Subrat Das, Executive Director of Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA, http://www.cbgaindia.org/) informed us that during...
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Chennai floods present a lesson in urban planning -KT Ravindran
-Hindustan Times The Chennai floods have thrown up some fundamental flaws in our system of urban planning. Across India, city after city has experienced floods, while some others live with the fear of impending disasters. In Mumbai, flooding was caused by wrong developments at the Bandra estuary and negligence along the Mithi river, and in Uttarakhand the disaster was caused by unplanned regional development and the unholy nexus between the land...
More »Cheaper data tariff driving rural boom in internet usage, says govt -M Rajendran
-Hindustan Times Declining data cost is boosting data traffic and internet usage in India and will take rural users to 87 million by December-end and 106 million by end-March 2016, a study by the communications ministry says. India has overtaken US and is behind only China on internet usage, and the government expects user-base to hit 450 million by next year-end. “Our studies have shown that the growth of e-commerce activities and government-to-citizen online...
More »Higher education enrolment rate dismal in Bihar -BK Mishra
-The Times of India PATNA: Will Bihar be able to achieve the national target of raising gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education to 30% by 2020? As per indications, it seems impossible. Less than 1% of state's population is enrolled for higher education. The total number of boys and girls admitted in 250 constituent colleges and 350 affiliated colleges under 13 universities of the state is less than eight lakh against...
More »Keeping a finger on the pulse economy -Yoginder K Alagh
-The Tribune To ensure stable prices of pulses and attractive returns for producers, policies of domestic prices and tariffs should blend. Import duties must be calibrated with demand. As the Indian economy grows at a rate of 7 per cent plus, assuming low growth as an aberration, the food basket will diversify. Within grains, the movement will be to pulses as shown by the expert group on pulse production. The yield and...
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