-Networkideas.org The basic income scheme that is in the air these days, which amounts to handing over a certain sum of money to every household to ensure that it reaches a threshold cash income, is an extremely flawed scheme. Instead of enjoining upon the state the obligation to provide essential goods and services like food, education, and health, to its citizens, it absolves the State of all such responsibility, once it...

-Frontline.in Available evidence indicates that the employment situation in India may have worsened in the recent past, and the losses have been heavy for the informal sector. The delayed release of official data on employment only makes diagnosis difficult. This year’s Union Budget, even if truncated because of its interim nature, was widely anticipated for the manner in which it would address the question of employment. In the last week of January,...

-The Telegraph Hospitalisation cover does not protect families from catastrophic expenses A three-state study has found that India’s government-funded or private health insurance schemes that pay for hospitalisation have not adequately protected households from catastrophic health expenditures and rekindled the debate on how to achieve universal health care. The study that examined sample households in Gujarat, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh found 28 per cent of insured households and 26 per cent of uninsured...

-The Telegraph There are enormous questions about implementation, and the first issue is that of identifying the farmers Everyone expected the Narendra Modi government to do something big — or at least promise something big — before the general elections. Everyone also sensed that it would be something to do with farmers, one of the economic and social concerns that have now also become a political talking point. But perhaps no one...

-Livemint.com If you want to give a cash benefit, do it without distinguishing between farmers and non-farmers A toothless NITI Aayog is trying to flex its muscles on India’s statistical system. And in doing so, it is destroying its credibility NEW DELHI: The income support scheme announced in the interim budget for small and marginal farmers is both regressive and inefficient, because it neither includes the poorest landless farmers, nor does it...