-PTI Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, during a debate on demonetisation in the Upper House on November 17, 2016, had termed the loan issue of Vijay Mallya a "terrible legacy" that the NDA government had inherited from the previous UPA regime. The finance ministry has told the Central Information Commission (CIC) that it does not have information about the loans given to industrialist Vijay Mallya, prompting the transparency panel to remark that the...

-Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) Union Budget 2018-19 is the fifth and the final full-year budget of the current ruling dispensation. The major plank on which this government was elected in 2014 with an exceptional mandate were issues of development related to reducing corruption, generating meaningful employment opportunities, tackling inflation (especially food inflation, an issue plaguing the economy at that point of time), reducing inequality, and pushing the economy...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The CPM has challenged in the Supreme Court the constitutionality of the recently introduced electoral bonds, alleging that it is a "ripe way" of ensuring all kinds of quid-pro-quo arrangements by the ruling party with entities whose identities will not be up for public scrutiny. The matter came up for hearing on Friday and the Supreme Court issued a fresh notice to the Centre. The bench, headed by...

-The Indian Express More transparency is needed for Indian society to have an informed debate about rising inequality In a recent study titled ‘Indian income inequality dynamics (1922-2014): From British Raj to Billionaire Raj?’ published on WID.world, we presented new estimates of the distribution of national income in India, from 1922, when the income tax was introduced, up to 2014. In this study, we systematically combine the best available data at hand...

-Counterview.net Calling the 2018-19 Union budget "highly disappointing", the top advocacy group, Right to Food Campaign (RFC), in a comprehensive analysis, has said, it has "miserably failed to respond to the present situation of rural distress and mass unemployment", adding, "Despite a spate of starvation deaths in different parts of the country, the budget makes no mention of hunger or malnutrition." Thus, RFC says, "There was some hope that the budget would...