-The Indian Express The budget aims at economic growth and social protection. This is welcome. So are provisions for financial inclusion, housing, water, sanitation and rural electrification. But there are also substantial cuts in crucial social sectors and key omissions that are likely to undermine its stated economic objectives. Consider agriculture, environment and women. First, double-digit growth or poverty reduction is unlikely without strong, sustained agricultural growth. In 2014-15, agriculture grew at...

-The Indian Express Little over a month ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' scheme from Panipat with much fanfare. On Saturday, his government slashed the allocation for the Women and Child Development Ministry by more than 50% from last year's allocation. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley allocated Rs 10,382 crore for the ministry. Last year, the allocation was Rs 21,193 crore of which the ministry managed...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley today promised gifts for children, women, patients and the poor but slashed his government's funding across the social sectors. Budget outlays for education, health, rural development, social justice and women and children have fallen sharply or remain close to the outlays these sectors had received last year. The allocation for children under the women and child development ministry witnessed the sharpest fall from last...

-The Telegraph Differences with the Prime Minister's Office appear to have held up key schemes of the women and child development (WCD) ministry announced in the budget five months ago. Among the measures stalled is the "one-stop rape crisis centres", christened Nirbhaya centres after the 2012 Delhi bus rape victim and seen as a pet project of Maneka Gandhi. The finance ministry had approved Rs 500 crore for the plan but, with the...

-The Hindu It was late afternoon on December 21, 2012, five days after five men and a juvenile gang-raped and fatally assaulted a 23-year-old paramedic student in a moving bus in Delhi. The stream of people walking towards Raisina Hill kept growing. Every few minutes, a loud sound followed by smoke billowing from tear gas shells fired from the towering red sandstone government buildings would send the protesters running. In a...