-The Indian Express Interim budget indicates that the government’s electoral strategy is to win over the ‘intermediate classes’ while ignoring the poor. The Narendra Modi government has now carried its penchant for undermining institutions to the national budget itself. Not only has it treated what should have been an interim budget, as its Tenure lasts barely two months into the new financial year, as a full-fledged budget, but it has also...

-TheWire.in The aggregate macroeconomic impact of this Budget cannot really be assessed, since the actual fiscal stance is now so opaque. Let’s get one thing clear. This is not an interim Budget, whatever the government finally agreed to call it. The sweeping promises made on both expenditure and taxation fronts are well beyond the limited minor changes that are supposed to be allowed in a vote-on-account or interim Budget. For a government that...

-TheWire.in P.C. Mohanan and J.V. Meenakshi – the only two non-government members of the commission – tendered their resignations because of the body's ineffectiveness. New Delhi: The only two non-government members of India’s National Statistical Commission have resigned, leaving just chief statistician Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog’s Amitabh Kant at the head of a body that is the apex advisory organisation for all of the country’s core statistical activities. According to sources with...

-The Hindu India’s public health system can no longer function within the shadows of its health services system In India, public health and health services have been synonymous. This integration has dwarfed the growth of a comprehensive public health system, which is critical to overcome some of the systemic challenges in healthcare. A stark increase in population growth, along with rising life expectancy, provides the burden of chronic diseases. Tackling this requires an...

-The Hindu Business Line ‘Centre has presented 5 full-fledged Budgets, does not have the legitimacy for a sixth’ The Congress alleged on Thursday that the Centre is planning to present a full-fledged Budget violating all Parliamentary conventions, procedures and traditions. It maintained that the Narendra Modi government neither has the “electoral mandate” nor the “electoral legitimacy” to present six full Budgets in five years. Talking to reporters, former minister and senior Congress spokesperson...