-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...

-Livemint.com Much of the increased spending will go towards preventive aspects of healthcare, with the health ministry by itself not gaining much even after the pandemic. India needs to do a whole lot more to strengthen its health infrastructure In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a 137% increase in allocations on “health and well-being" for 2021-22, to ₹2.24 trillion. Embedded in that declaration was a definitional change: it also...

-Livemint.com The Union government has finally stepped on the gas when it comes to spending. But after a temporary splurge in the rest of this fiscal year, the finance ministry will tighten its purse strings to bring down debt levels, the budget numbers suggest Even as countries across the world raised spending aggressively to counter the economic impact of the covid-19 pandemic, India had remained an outlier. Throughout the pandemic, the finance...

-TheWire.in One of the most disturbing effects of the pandemic has been on the nutritional needs of the disadvantaged. The Budget needs to prioritise addressing this issue. The pandemic led disruptions of nutrition services have exacerbated India’s existing burden of undernutrition. Children did not get the mid-day meals and supplementary nutrition under the anganwadi services scheme they were registered under. Critical health services like immunisation, iron-folic acide and calcium supplementation, treatment of...

-Financial Express Union Budget 2021 Expectations by Women: The Union Budget 2021-22 presents an opportunity to ensure that India’s economic growth and development is inclusive. Union Budget 2021-22 Expectations by Women: The year 2021 started with a renewed sense of hope, with vaccines for COVID-19 being rolled out across several nations. There is also hope that countries will be able to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels of growth by designing and delivering...