-The Hindu The top-down, rushed approach of the government in reaching out to farmers is likely to end in failure This year’s Interim Budget is being regarded as a big spread for farmers. The government announced its decision to transfer Rs.6,000 every year directly to 12 crore farmers holding cultivable land up to 2 hectares through the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme. While this is a progressive step, is it...

-The Telegraph Hospitalisation cover does not protect families from catastrophic expenses A three-state study has found that India’s government-funded or private health insurance schemes that pay for hospitalisation have not adequately protected households from catastrophic health expenditures and rekindled the debate on how to achieve universal health care. The study that examined sample households in Gujarat, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh found 28 per cent of insured households and 26 per cent of uninsured...

-ThePrint.in Rahul Gandhi’s announcement is certainly good politics, but does it make for good economics? Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s announcement on a minimum income guarantee for the poor, coming days before the Narendra Modi administration unveils its own income support plans in the interim budget, certainly makes for good politics. But does it make for good economics? With the stress on farmer incomes and rural wages reaching crisis proportions, efforts to loosen the...

-The Indian Express Interim budget indicates that the government’s electoral strategy is to win over the ‘intermediate classes’ while ignoring the poor. The Narendra Modi government has now carried its penchant for undermining institutions to the national budget itself. Not only has it treated what should have been an interim budget, as its tenure lasts barely two months into the new financial year, as a full-fledged budget, but it has also...

-Livemint.com If you want to give a cash benefit, do it without distinguishing between farmers and non-farmers A toothless NITI Aayog is trying to flex its muscles on India’s statistical system. And in doing so, it is destroying its credibility NEW DELHI: The income support scheme announced in the interim budget for small and marginal farmers is both regressive and inefficient, because it neither includes the poorest landless farmers, nor does it...