The nation can be proud of running some of the world's largest programmes on social safety nets, says the latest report by World Bank. However, public spending on safety nets is still low in comparison to neighbouring countries Bangladesh and Pakistan. India tops the list of 136 countries for running the world's largest school feeding programme i.e. the Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS), and also the biggest public works programme i.e....
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Where is the caste data? -M Vijayanunni
-The Hindu By abdicating its responsibility to conduct the caste census and turning it into a poverty-cum-caste survey, the previous dispensation at the Centre made the exercise casual and perfunctory. This has been proved by the way the survey has turned out. In August 2010, Finance Minister and head of the Group of Ministers, Pranab Mukherjee, made a reassuring statement in Parliament on behalf of the government of India, that there would...
More »670 Million In Rural Areas Live On Rs 33 Per Day -Saumya Tewari
-IndiaSpend.com More than 70 million rural households face some form of exclusion, either from assets or socio-economic benefits, according to data released by the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) survey last week. As many as 833 million Indians, or 69% of the population, live in rural areas. The SECC report comes at a time when global credit rating agencies, such as Moody’s, have warned that slow growth in rural India may cripple the...
More »The Importance of Being 'Rurban': Tracking Changes in a Traditional Setting -Dipankar Gupta
-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...
More »Modi government cuts social sector allocations to states by half to promote cooperative federalism
-The Economic Times BENGALURU: As the central government devolves more fiscal freedom to the states, they seem to be cutting allocations to social sectors, especially agriculture and allied areas in response, according to the initial findings of a study. The Narendra Modi administration wants to empower states further as part of a push toward cooperative federalism. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's February budget cut allocations to the states by more than half in...
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