-The Business Standard Interim Budget's partiality to sports utility vehicles The interim Budget's decision to cut the excise duty on sports utility vehicles, or SUVs, from 30 per cent to 24 per cent will certainly benefit car makers (they have already reduced their price tags), but it raises some pertinent questions. Last year, while presenting the Budget for 2013-14, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had raised the duty on SUVs from 27 per...
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2014 Lok Sabha polls will see most first-time voters-Rukmini S
-The Hindu Election Commission data show that 2.3 crore people in the 18-19 age bracket have been enrolled to vote, out of a total electorate of 81.5 crore This Lok Sabha election is likely to reflect the peak of India's electoral demographic dividend with 10% of voters likely to be first-time voters, a combination of electoral and demographic data shows. As fertility begins to decline - faster in the south than in...
More »Maternal Mortality down but nowhere close to MDG target
A nation's prosperity is determined to a large extent by the health care received by its female population. India's maternal mortality is down but we still have miles to go before we come close to achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets (Please see the links and graph below). The latest available figures released by the Office of Registrar General (India) provide some interesting trends on maternal health indicators. It...
More »Rs.3720.19 Crore Released During First Year of Twelfth Five Year Plan Period Under BRGF to the States
-Press Information Bureau (Ministry of Panchayati Raj) Government has released Rs. 3720.19 crore during first year of Twelfth Five Year Plan that is 2012-13 under the Backward Regions Grant Fund(B.R.G.F.) Programme being implemented by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj. Answering a question in Lok Sabha today, Panchayati Raj Minister Shri V.KISHORE CHANDRA DEO said, the released amount is 99.63 percent of the total Revised Estimate (RE) allocation of Rs. 3734 crore for...
More »India's health sector is dismal: Amartya Sen
-SouthAsianMedia.net Stating that India's health sector is in a "dismal condition", Nobel laureate Amartya Sen yesterday said over reliance on private health sector without the availability of basic public health services would lead to exploitation of vulnerable and under-informed patients. "The state of healthcare is dismal," Sen said while addressing the press conference at the 11th Kolkata Group workshop, which was organised by Pratichi (India) trust. "We are not against private healthcare, but...
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