The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has recently made an upward revision to the growth to be experienced by the agrarian economy in the present crop year (viz. from July, 2017 to June, 2018). The growth in real Gross Value Added (GVA) by the agrarian sector as a whole is expected to be 3.0 percent in 2017-18 as per the second advance estimates of national income for 2017-18, which was released...
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Why the fuss about fiscal deficit? -Aarati Krishnan
-The Hindu The answer lies in the fragile state of the Centre’s finances, and its control over interest, pension and subsidy expenses To any layman watching India’s annual Budget jamboree, the entire exercise must seem very puzzling. After the Finance Minister has read out a long list of giveaways to farmers, small businesses, low-income earners and senior citizens in his speech, none of the beneficiaries seems entirely happy with their gifts. Commentators, after...
More »Size of tax rebates is large as compared to spending by agricultural & rural development ministries
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...
More »Education ups attendance of MPs, criminal history lowers it -Neelanjan Sircar
-Hindustan Times An analysis of parliamentarians’ attendance suggests a correlation between their regularity and the troika of moveable wealth, education, and criminality. Showing up to work is the least we can expect from our Members of Parliament (MPs). Yet, very few MPs do this with regularity — only 20% of standard (non-minister) MPs that served a full term in Lok Sabha between 2009 and 2014 attended Parliament at least 90% of the...
More »Despite having a food security legislation, spending on food subsidy is low
Recent data from the National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4) shows that about one-third of children in India is undernourished – 35.7 percent children below 5 years are underweight (too thin for age), 38.4 percent are stunted (too short for age) and 21.0 percent are wasted (too thin for height). It is also revealed that the level of anaemia among women and girls (aged 15-49 years) has stagnated marginally over the...
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