-Hindustan Times Currently, two of the Government of India’s (GoI) largest schemes focussed on reviving the rural economy have been the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN). With food inflation hitting 14% in December 2019 and real rural wages declining for eight consecutive months (latest data available till October), rural India is among the worst hit by the current economic slowdown. Providing...
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Budget 2020: Income tax slabs lowered for those who forgo exemptions
-The Hindu Announcing new income tax proposals in the Union Budget 2020, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the new tax rates will be optional. In a proposal to simplify the personal income tax regime, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in the Union Budget 2020 speech, said that income tax rates will be “significantly reduced” for those who forgo reliefs and exemptions. The new tax rates will be optional, she said. Please click here...
More »For the rural poor, a manufactured crisis -Rajendran Narayanan
-The Hindu Instead of focusing on increasing rural wages, the BJP-led government is wasting resources on the NPR and NRC The National Population Register (NPR) and a possible National Register of Citizens (NRC), which will unleash a humanitarian crisis, are being pushed at a time when rural distress is acute. With the Budget due soon, let’s look at how the BJP-led government has served the interests of the rural poor. A grim picture The...
More »Will the Budget offer some solace to farm widows? -TV Jayan
-The Hindu Business Line They await a comprehensive relief and rehabilitation package from the Centre “The governments here have been asleep for far too long. They should listen to us and solve our problems. If they can’t, they should just go,” thundered Vidya More, a 38-year-old farmer widow from Osmanabad district of Maharashtra. Her frustration is understandable; her husband committed suicide about eight years ago when he couldn’t get enough from his two-acre...
More »Time to prioritise education and health -Muchkund Dubey
-The Hindu Investment in these areas will create demand in the short run and make the economy more competitive in the long run In recent months, the government’s macroeconomic policy has acquired a new salience in the context of reversing the current slowdown. The policy currently being pursued is intended primarily to incentivise potential investors by facilitating ease-of-doing-business and making large-scale concessions to the corporate sector. In this context, the government is...
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