-Live Mint In Parliament address, Mukherjee says direct cash transfers will cut leakages and bring benefits to the poorest Acknowledging that growing aspirations, particularly among the youth, are going largely unmet, the government has signalled a policy makeover, including undertaking “difficult decisions”. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) also indicated that it was looking to the direct benefit transfer scheme based on the Aadhaar or unique identity system to restore the feel-good factor...

-The Times of India To remove various disadvantages that women face in India, the Union government introduced Gender Responsive Budgeting (or Gender Budgeting) in 2005-06. It meant that high-flying promises on empowering women were to be backed by financial outlays and that a gender perspective was to imbue all policy making. It was always a tough call - from the home, to the workplace and generally in society women are treated like...

-The Asian Age Ahead of the Union Budget, senior ministers of the UPA appear to be petitioning Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with claims and counter-claims over the performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MNREGA).   After finance minister P. Chidambaram apparently tried to impress upon the Prime Minister for cut in MNREGA budget, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, in a letter to Dr Singh, has rebutted his colleague’s perception about...

-Economic and Political Weekly The proposed legislation on the National Food Security Act has been steadily watered down since it was fi rst mooted in 2009. The Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the 2011 Bill has disappointingly continued with "targeting". If the government passes the bill incorporating the committee's suggestions, a historic opportunity to combat hunger and malnutrition would be lost. Ankita Aggarwal (aggarwal.ankita87@gmail.com) is a Research Scholar at the Centre for...

-DNA Crashing economy, lower revenue generation and less then expected tax collection will show its impact on the upcoming budget. The biggest loser is going to be the rural development ministry, which is likely to see a decline in central assistance for its welfare schemes. Rural development has been the top priority of the UPA-2. However, grim economic growth has forced finance minister P Chidambaram to cut the budget of the...