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...
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Why this will be a reform budget-Surjit S Bhalla
Most of us don’t even get a single shot at making history — Manmohan Singh has a second chance The fiscal deficit is an outcome, not a policy. It is the net resolution of the policies pertaining to taxes and expenditure. It is worth analysing separately the two components of the deficit. The table reports the results of relating the tax and expenditure share of GDP to per capita income for...
More »FCI pays 30% less, forces distress sale by Sidhartha & Surojit Gupta
Farmers across the country are entitled to get Rs 1,080 a quintal (100kg) asminimum support price for paddy. But surprisingly, a team from the Centre that visited Bihar and Uttar Pradesh last week found that theFood Corporation of India (FCI) was paying nearly 30% less. With little procurement taking place in these states, farmers have been left with no option but to go for distress sale. The result: In procurement centres...
More »Muslim board intensifies campaign for demands by Khalid Akhter
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), the apex body of Indian Muslims, is venting its ire against the Congress-led UPA government after it got no response to its demands for amendments in Right to Education (RTE) Act, Waqf Property and Direct Taxes Code Bills. Though the board has been holding meetings across the country to mobilise public opinion since June 2011, the campaign has been intensified in the poll-bound...
More »Food security: Delivering the promise efficiently by Ashok Gulati, Jyoti Gujral & T Nanda Kumar
To banish hunger and malnutrition from the country, Parliament is likely to pass the National Food Security Bill (NFSB). In our earlier article on this issue, Can we Afford Rs 6-Lakh-Cr Food Subsidy Bill in 3 Yrs? (ET, December 17, 2011), we concentrated on the likely financial implication that we estimated at roughly Rs 6,00,000 crore over a period of three years. In this piece, we address the operational challenges...
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