-Firstpost.com The biggest hoodwink is the starved Poshan Abhiyan 2.0, which though merges the Supplementary Nutrition Programme and the Poshan Abhiyan, has been allocated an amount less than what was prescribed for Anganwadi services in 2020 In a post-truth world, the plain cold statistics in the fine print of the Union Budget 2021 often reveal more than the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's speech. The budget for NREGA labourers has been slashed despite...

-The Hindu That there is no targeted employment programme to alleviate the immediate crisis is a matter of concern The Budget, at its simplest, is the government’s tentative income and expenditure statement. Like all financial statements, the devil lies in the fine print. At its broadest, the Budget is a pious statement of the government’s policy and ideological intentions. It is also the government’s statement of how it seeks to tackle the...

-Frontline.in Ten million girls in India could drop out of secondary school due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Right to Education Forum policy brief. With 1.6 million girls aged 11 to 14 years currently out of school, the pandemic could disproportionately impact girls further by putting them at risk of early marriage, early pregnancy, poverty, trafficking and violence. Released on January 24, the International Day of Education and National Girl...

-The New Indian Express When he was in Class IV, Binesh Balan had done manual jobs in his native Kolichal in Kasaragod to escape grinding poverty. KOZHIKODE: When he was in Class IV, Binesh Balan had done manual jobs in his native Kolichal in Kasaragod to escape grinding poverty.  Two decades on, the boy, now 29, belonging to the Mavilan tribal community, succeeded in developing an open banking software as a researcher...

-The New Indian Express Budget 2021-22: Rising poverty, falling health parameters, worsening educational outcomes, inadequate housing and widespread unemployment are the biggest challenges facing the Indian economy. MYSURU: From a distance, a house at Harthale, Nanjangud, looks like any other in the locality. But you step inside, and you will find recycled wooden windows and doors procured from demolished buildings, broken ceramics for surface, mud concrete blocks made out of building waste,...