Poor utilization of funds and irregular disbursals have been cited as the reasons for India’s school education system failing to show desired improvement even as the government has more than doubled funds for education programmes in the past two years. The government has spent just 70% of the funds allocated for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (education for all) and Right to Education in 2010-11 compared with 78% in the year earlier, according...
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Budget 2012: Farce of food subsidy being played out again-Nidhi Nath Srinivas
The UPA-II has used the Budget to again play politics with hunger. But it has paid no heed to the ticking time bomb of growing social tensions as 58 million Indians living off agriculture slide deeper into poverty. The Economic Survey says more than half the population is dependent on a sector whose share in the economy is shrinking. The urban-rural income divide is therefore steadily widening, a tinder box that...
More »Retrospective amendment of I-T Act not specific to Vodafone case: Pranab by Ashok Dasgupta
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee maintained on Sunday that the budgetary proposal to amend the Income Tax Act with retrospective effect from 1962 to assert the government's right to levy tax on merger and acquisition (M&A) deals involving overseas companies with business assets in India is not Vodafone “case specific,” but an enabling provision to protect the fiscal interests of the country and avert the chances of a crisis. Faced with all-round...
More »5.3 % share for children in Budget-Aarti Dhar
As much as 5.3 per cent of the Union Budget for 2012-13 is Budget for Children (BfC) with an increase of 0.3 per cent since 2011-12. This must be set against the inflation rate of 6.6 per cent. The increase can be attributed to the increased allocation in the development sector by 66.2 per cent and health by 29.7 per cent. However, as always, the share of the protection sector remains...
More »Population register date -Nishit Dholabhai
Home minister P. Chidambaram has set a two-year deadline for completing the National Population Register (NPR). In a release today, his ministry said the register was “likely to be” completed by March 2014, the statement coming a day after the Union budget announced that the Aadhaar platform was ready to support payments for projects like the rural job scheme. Aadhaar, a project of the Planning Commission, is the unique number meant for...
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