-The Hindu Business Line The priority for this government is to promote the medical care market, not ensure universal healthcare for the majority Those at the helm of policymaking in the country have been, for some time, strongly advocating austerity as the principle for public expenditure policies, particularly for the social sectors. Arvind Panagariya, the vice-chairperson of the NITI Aayog, suggests that “for just three-quarters of a per cent of the GDP”, 0.76...

-Livemint.com NSSO report shows that private schools are preferred over government schools due to better quality education New Delhi: While presenting the budget for Delhi last month, finance minister Manish Sisodia announced an expenditure of Rs.102 crore on training of teachers and principals in the new fiscal year. This was just Rs.9.4 crore last year. Sisodia said his aim was to bring government schools to world class standards in Delhi. While...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: The recently released United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) report on child marriages shows that Gujarat, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Telangana have high prevalence of child marriages. The report, "Reducing Child Marriage in India A Model to Scale up Results", mentions Gujarat's Patan among districts with highest numbers of child marriages in India, along with other such districts from states like Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Telangana....

-Kafila.org The last few months have seen an unusual public engagement around questions of secularism, freedom of speech, sedition and the like, with furious debates everywhere from our campuses, streets and TV studios to the floor of Parliament. The budget session has been enlivened by scenes of high drama, with the leading lights of the Treasury benches bringing colour, sound and fury to their tutorials on patriotism and nationalism. While these high-decibel...

-Livemint.com The government relies on for-profit big business to deliver public goods despite their inability to deliver Can we listen to the budget as an annual public statement by the government of its economic and social philosophy and intent? The centre abandoned five-year plans that earlier laid down a road map of where government policies are headed. The budget, then, is an important reality check of whether the government is literally...