-The Indian Express A theme common to both mahapanchayats in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli, which saw communal violence in 2013, was an appeal to keep religious identities aside and come together as farmers. Muzaffarnagar, Shamli: From Greta Thunberg to sugarcane dues to communal harmony — a mahapanchayat in Shamli on Friday, meant to rally western UP support for the farm protests, saw speakers exPLAin a host of issues to an estimated 10,000-strong crowd. The...

-Hindustan Times The chairman of the 15th Finance Commission, NK Singh, spoke to Zia Haq about the final report of the Commission for 2021-26 which has now been made public. Edited excerpts. The Constitution, through Article 280 to 281, provides for finance commissions every five years as a mechanism for sharing of taxes and revenues vertically between the Centre and states; and horizontally among all states, based on levels of development, demographic...

-The Hindu Even with closures, capex exceeded PLAn, says Expenditure Secretary Expenditure Secretary T.V. Somanathan said the government has been very careful and realistic in its expenditure and receipts projections for 2021-22, and that its push for capital expenditure is the largest ever over a two-year period. Excerpts: * You have called it an expansionary budget, but overall spending is just about ₹33,000 crore in 2021-22 over this year’s revised estimates (RE). Also,...

In order to understand why the Union Budget 2021-22 is being termed as ‘transparent’, it has to be read simultaneously with the 15th Finance Commission Main Report for 2021-26. But first, let us discuss 'fertilizer subsidy'. The budget documents for Union Budget 2021-22 show that the spending on ‘fertilizer subsidy’ was slashed from Rs. 1,33,947 crore in 2020-21 (revised estimate) to Rs. 79,530 crore in 2021-22 (budget estimate). However, the budgetary...

-Down to Earth Air pollution is a transboundary problem, it transcends rural and urban boundaries. But the issue is rarely discussed and action PLAns are rigid Air pollution in India is generally perceived as a problem of the cities and by the cities. Quite predictably, solutions have been designed for the cities. Initiatives to alleviate poor air remain conspicuously absent in rural areas. Rural air pollution has usually been ignored by scientists and...