-The Telegraph After the third general elections held in 1962, the scholar-statesman, C. Rajagopalachari, wrote a fascinating, if now forgotten, essay on the imperfections of our young democracy. "The Indian electorate", remarked Rajaji, "suffers from well-known defects from which Western democracies are relatively free. The Indian voters are in great measure poor and vulnerable to bribery: even a day's expense for food serves to buy a large number of the poor...
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Before Universal Basic Income, We Must First Get Social Spending Basics Right -Anjana Thampi and Ishan Anand
-TheWire.in The Economic Survey 2016-17 devotes a chapter to the provision of a Universal Basic Income (UBI), describing it as a “raging new idea,” a “radical new vision” and “the shortest path to eliminating poverty”. While warning that the UBI “should not become the Trojan horse that usurps the fiscal space for a well-functioning state,” the survey says a de facto UBI can be instituted in the existing “fiscal space”. It...
More »Grim diagnosis of govt health cover -GS Mudur
-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's government-funded health insurance schemes have increased patients' access to hospitalisation but failed to reduce their households' personal out-of-pocket healthcare expenses, the most comprehensive review of the schemes so far has found. The review by public health analysts has found increases ranging from 12 per cent to 244 per cent in hospital-based services across the country since the schemes were launched a decade ago. But there is no...
More »Share of spend in government expenditure, GDP on education falling for 3 years -Subodh Varma
-The Times of India Spending on education as a share of the central government's total budgeted expenditure has been falling for the past three years. Compared to 2013-14, the last year of UPA, when education got 4.57% of the total expenditure, there has been a steady decline — 3.65% in 2016-17, according to this Budget's revised estimate, with the estimated outlay for the coming year showing a minor uptick at 3.71%. Looking...
More »A status quo budget for the social sector -Yamini Aiyar
-Livemint.com It should lay to rest the ongoing debate about this government’s attempt to radically restructure India’s welfare architecture There were no surprises—no helicopter drop of money into Jan-Dhan accounts, no move to dismantle ongoing welfare schemes in favour of a universal basic income (UBI). Far from being the populist, game-changing budget that many had expected, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley presented a sombre, status quo budget which, apart from some tinkering...
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