The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...
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The pandemic has hampered social auditing of MGNREGA
When a massive sum of public money is spent on a programme like Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGA)--a demand-driven programme, there is likelihood of financial misappropriations and mismanagement. Thankfully there are checks and balances in the rural employment guarantee legislation to counter such malpractices. It is worth noting that the total allocation under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGA) for 2020-21 was Rs. 1,11,500.00 crore (R.E.), up...
More »Tax policy in trying times -TCA Ramanujam and TCA Sangeetha
-The Hindu The events of the pandemic show how it is the need of the hour to modernise India’s archaic tax laws The word ‘lockdown’, which is Collins Dictionary’s word of the year, sums up the pain that the world underwent in 2020. As a result of the pandemic-induced lockdown, India’s GDP contracted consecutively for two quarters from April to September 2020. Some have gained from the pandemic. India’s super rich only became...
More »Can raising the approved labour budget from 280.76 crore person-days to 306.6 crore person-days help the unskilled returnee migrants who prefer MGNREGA to Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan?
Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
More »Revealed: River of anonymous election cash that flowed to Calcutta -Anita Joshua
-The Telegraph Figures in May take the total amount of money invested in this opaque source of funding since January to Rs 4,794 crore Electoral bonds accounting for the maximum amount of political donations in India in May were sold in Calcutta, according to information accessed by a citizen through the Right to Information route. Of the bonds worth Rs 822 crore that were sold in select outlets of the State Bank of...
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