-The Telegraph The Union Budget reveals glaring gaps in allocations for education Appearances can be deceptive. On the face of it, education has been allotted Rs 1,04,278 crore — a rise of Rs 11,054 crore from 2021-2022 — in this year’s budget. However, this still amounts to just above 3 per cent of the gross domestic product, falling far short of the 6 per cent public investment recommended by the National Education...

-TheWire.in What you lose on the wings, you gain on the roundabouts.  With no other major growth investments or policy reforms in the budget, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman made capital investment the lynchpin of the government’s growth strategy in Budget 2022. Stressing that “the virtuous cycle of investment requires public investment to crowd-in private investment” she took high moral ground to say that the “public investment must continue to take the lead and...

-Centre for Science and Environment * Releases new report that presents irrefutable evidence of the benefits of non-chemical agriculture * Yesterday’s Budget promises to promote chemical-free natural farming, but it is a half-hearted promise at best, as no separate allocation has been made in it, says CSE * CSE’s asks: Invest in organic and natural farming. Make it a mass movement New Delhi, February 2, 2022: “Despite the push given to it through periodic...

-Centre for Science and Environment India has one of the highest arable land areas in the world1 with a net sown area of 140.1 million hectares (ha).2 Agriculture and allied sectors employ 54.6 per cent of the total workforce in India (2019–20).3 The country successfully adopted the Green Revolution in the 1960s—an input and chemical-intensive agriculture model—to overcome food scarcity by use of high yield varieties, pesticides, fertilizers, and agriculture machinery...

-The Telegraph The Union budget is an embodiment of unequal fiscal policy The finance minister and her ministry have betrayed, once again, their lack of understanding of the Indian economy or the conditions under which most Indians are living today. Despite attempts to ‘talk up’ the supposed recovery, the economy is weak and most people are hurting. India has seen one of the biggest increases in the number of poor and hungry people...