-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 Indian Express There are grand promises. But the actual increases in budgetary outlays are shockingly low. This government is especially good at optics, at managing public perceptions to persuade people that it is working for them, rather than doing so. So it is no surprise that Arun Jaitley’s pre-election budget speech went on about how much his government cares for the people, the poor, for farmers, for women, for people...

-The Hindu Analysing data without providing sufficient context is dangerous An inherent challenge in journalism is to meet deadlines without compromising on quality, while sticking to the word limit. However, brevity takes a toll when it comes to reporting on surveys, indexes, and big data. Let me examine three sets of stories which were based on surveys and carried prominently by this newspaper, to understand the limits of presenting data without providing...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Children below five years in India who receive good nutrition are likelier to complete college education, find jobs and remain unmarried in their early 20s, researchers said on Friday. The health researchers, who surveyed a group of adults who had received a daily corn-soya blend upma meal when they were children, say their findings show how nutritional intervention during early childhood can influence long-term outcomes in education and...

  Budgetary allocation to a particular sector indicates how much priority the government assigns to that sector as compared to the rest. A preliminary analysis by the Inclusive Media for Change team indicates that the actual expenditure (net of receipts and recoveries) by two of the country’s most important ministries, namely the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoAFW) and the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) was less than 1 percent...