Believe it or not, the total revenue foregone in 2017-18 on account of special tax rates, exemptions, deductions, rebates, deferrals and credits -- broadly termed as 'tax expenditures' (an indirect subsidy) – that was given to corporate taxpayers has been more than 50 percent of the expenditure incurred by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoAFW) and the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) altogether in that year. In other...

-The Hindu In a pre-election Budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley serves up a mix of populism and prudence With a clear eye on the Lok Sabha election, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley pulled out all the stops in the Narendra Modi government’s last full Budget to promise a better deal for farmers, boost the rural economy and make the poor less vulnerable to health exigencies. Responding to the distress in the agriculture sector...

-TheWire.in This is the last full budget of the present government and the last opportunity for it to demonstrate its commitment to India’s health and nutrition. Slow improvements in basic indicators of maternal and child mortality, double burden of communicable as well as non-communicable diseases, high out-of-pocket expenditure, a failing public sector and heavily commercialised private sector characterise the healthcare crisis in India. The year 2017 saw a number of incidents in the...

-Business Today Social sector spending and investments in infrastructure development could be the highlights of the forthcoming Union Budget 2018-19, credit rating agency ICRA forecasts. It expects increase in budgetary allocations for social infrastructure and social security spending, such as NREGA (rural job security), food subsidy (food security), insurance schemes and welfare pensions. Larger allocations for infrastructure related to cold chains, etc., considered to boost the agricultural sector and the rural...

-The Financial Express India Economic Survey 2018: Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian says that the Indian economy is showing robust signs of recovery and a series of major reforms undertaken over the past year will allow real GDP growth to reach 6.75 percent this fiscal and will rise to 7.0 to 7.5 percent in 2018-19. Addressing media in the press conference post release of the economic survey, CEA Arvind Subramanian noted...