-The Business Standard The Budget missed the chance to articulate its intentions to the farming community; the prime minister's Independence Day speech provides another invaluable opportunity Young Indians starting their careers in an environment devoid of hope and opportunity and surviving on dole will be inclined to populist politics. But the farming community expects much more substance from the government, and the Budget was a good example of how populism trumped...

-Economic and Political Weekly   The emphasis on use of digital technologies to bridge the "rural-urban gap" in the union budget is limited to high talk and minimal allocations. The need for a more comprehensive and peoples' participation-oriented rural action plan should have been the focus while setting sectoral allocations, but that is not to be in this mid-year budget. Vipul Mudgal (vipulmudgal@gmail.com) heads the Inclusive Media for Change project at the Centre...

-Live Mint   Programme that aims to provide basic facilities such as drinking water may focus on census towns and small cities New Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is likely to announce a mission aimed at providing urban facilities in rural areas in the Union budget in July, a promise the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the ruling coalition, made in its election manifesto. The mission is aimed at providing...

KEY TRENDS   • In 2017-18, 24.8 percent of rural working-age men and 74.5 percent of rural working-age (viz. 15-59 years) women were not employed. In urban areas, 25.8 percent of working-age men and 80.2 percent of working-age women were not employed AB   • Both the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) and the Consumer Pyramids Survey of the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE-CPDX) report the overall unemployment rate to be around 6 per cent in 2018,...

**page** [inside]KEY TRENDS of the Union Budget 2023-24[/inside] Budget 2023-24 is the last full budget before the general election scheduled for 2024. An analysis of the budget allocations suggests that the union government has squeezed expenditure, particularly on food subsidy and the NREGA budget, while boosting Capital expenditure and giving the middle class tax benefits. Social sector activists working on Right to Food, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) came out with...