School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...

-Down to Earth While total allocations to Union budget 2021-22 saw an increase of 14.5%, the share for children declined by 10.8% compared to 2020 The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has dealt a serious blow to the Indian economy. The economic slowdown has aggravated poverty, disrupted public provisioning for children’s welfare, exacerbated existing gaps in availability, access and utilisation of services. It has multiplied challenges for children from marginalised communities. Healthcare, nutrition,...

-Press note by People’s Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG) dated 10th February, 2021 In its press note dated 10th February, 2021, People’s Action for Employment Guarantee has noted that the Union Budget 2021-22 largely failed to address the challenge of increasing inequality and declining welfare during the pandemic. For the FY 2021-22, Rs. 73,000 crore has been allocated, which although greater than the original allocation of Rs.61,500 crore for 2020-21, is 34.5...

-The Hindu On several significant items relating to the environment, allocations have remained stagnant or fallen In 1991, when the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh ushered in economic reforms that catapulted India into the global economy, I had asked him how he intended to balance rapid economic growth with environmental protection. He said that the experience of the West is that once there is enough money in the economy through growth, it...

In order to understand why the Union Budget 2021-22 is being termed as ‘transparent’, it has to be read simultaneously with the 15th Finance Commission Main Report for 2021-26. But first, let us discuss 'fertilizer subsidy'. The budget documents for Union Budget 2021-22 show that the spending on ‘fertilizer subsidy’ was slashed from Rs. 1,33,947 crore in 2020-21 (revised estimate) to Rs. 79,530 crore in 2021-22 (budget estimate). However, the budgetary...