-IdeasforIndia.com The Centre has sought an additional Rs. 25,000 crore as funding for MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). Based on simple calculations using official data, Ashwini Kulkarni contends that the actual fund requirement is in fact much higher. As the pandemic continues to adversely impact rural livelihoods, the government should allocate sufficient funds to MNREGA, in order to honour the work-on-demand guarantee. For over a month, national and local...

-TheNewsMinute.com The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 seems to favour a model of privatisation and exclusivity that would deeply widen India’s existing inequalities. On August 24, Delhi University witnessed a vehement protest by the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) outside the Vice Chancellor’s office. Inside, the academic council was meeting to reinstate the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) model (which was earlier scrapped in 2013), in accordance with the National Education Policy (NEP)...

-The Hindu The reduction of out-of-pocket expenditure that the NHA highlights is essentially due to a decline in utilisation of care Low public spending on health in India has meant that people depend heavily on their own means to access health care. It causes rich-poor, rural-urban, gender and caste-based divides in access to health care, pushes people to poverty, and forces them to incur debt or sell assets. As a result, our...

-The Hindu Business Line Farmers say the schemes do not reach them and cost of farming is only rising The government of India facilitates State governments to reduce agricultural costs through many Centrally-sponsored and Central-sector schemes. However, the latest data available for six major schemes for the last five years show that the actual expenditure on these schemes has remained low compared to Budget estimates. Farmers have been complaining that the schemes are...

-Economic and Political Weekly The appropriateness of the criterion that pegs the ratio of public health expenditure to the gross domestic product—which is volatile—needs a re-examination. The targets for allocation and expenditure of financial resources for health need to be based on indicators that can be monitored. Please click here to access the article.    ...