Budget 2011-12 marks a sharp retreat of the government from the social and economic sectors. It has cut back expenditures in sectors that matter to common people, especially the poor. On the other hand, it has given huge concessions to the corporate sector in the form of tax cuts and exemptions. Let us take the overall fiscal stance of the budget. The underlying strategy is to reduce its fiscal deficit to...

The budget is a “mixed bag” for the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council, said members. It promises to bring in the National Food Security bill that the Congress chief hopes will signpost UPA-II’s continuing commitment to social and economic inclusion in the way that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act did UPA-I. But finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s restatement of the Centre’s position on indexing MNREGA Wages to the consumer price...

To invest the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) funds in a “fruitful” way, the state’s Department of Rural Development has decided to create a banana plantation over 1 lakh acres. The project will take off in July and will benefit around 1.5 lakh farmers, said Manoj Kumar Singh, the state’s Secretary of Rural Development and Horticulture and Food Processing. Singh was the Chief Guest of a “Mango Gosthi and...

Money makes news. When it is found, promiscuously. And when it is lost, presumptively. And when it is found to lie hidden. Also when it stands brazenly, as in election candidatures. Does hunger, to satisfy which money, income, Wages — the power to purchase food — are needed, make news? Does the crisis in our agriculture make news? When Amartya Sen speaks of hunger and malnutrition, when MS Swaminathan does so...

By stubbornly overruling the National Advisory Council, the government risks defeating its purpose as a body that speaks for the poor and the disadvantaged. HAS the Manmohan Singh government begun to regard the National Advisory Council (NAC) as an adversary who should be undermined? Going by their exchanges on key issues such as food security, Wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), and the implementation of the Scheduled Tribes...