-Hindustan Times In India, it’s difficult to find accurate estimates of campaign spending. Research also shows that illicit funds are important in funding elections in the country. Despite constant chatter about the massive (and rising) costs of election campaigns in India, there is a dearth of credible data on the actual costs, the sources of support for candidates, and the implications of campaign costs on governance between elections. However, newly available survey data...

-CaravanMagazine.in The Chattisgarh government's advertisements for the Vikas Yatra display photographs of the BJP national president, Amit Shah, the party’s state president, Dharamlal Kaushik, and other local party leaders. None of these leaders hold a position falling within the exceptions carved out by the Supreme Court for government advertisements.   In late May, Shiv Kumar Banerjee, the sub-divisional magistrate of Chhattisgarh’s Rajpur area, conducted an inspection of a school premises ahead of...

-Hindustan Times Profitability takes a hit as real MSPs have not risen over the years New Delhi: Most commentary around rural anger in India has been focused on either the sector’s growth performance or Government spending on agriculture. Such analysis is likely to present an incomplete picture at best. Government spending on agriculture is a small fraction of the total agricultural economic output. In 2017-18, the ministry of agriculture’s spending was less...

-Civil Society News New Delhi: In 1974, Dr Samir Chaudhuri, a paediatrician working in Kolkata’s slums, founded Child in Need Institute (CINI) to tackle the many dimensions of child malnutrition. It struck him at the time that malnutrition wasn’t just a clinical problem but a complex phenomenon rooted in gender issues. Over the years, led by Dr Chaudhuri, CINI developed deep understanding of the social, economic and political underpinnings of malnutrition...

-Financial Express Among the six states studied by Icrier, Gujarat spends the most on agriculture R&E (0.59%), followed by Bihar (0.50%), Punjab (0.41%), Odisha (0.25%), Uttar Pradesh (0.17%) and Madhya Pradesh (0.24%). The government’s expenditure on agricultural research and extension education services is not only very low but also heavily skewed in favour of crops, even as the dairy sector has a rapidly increasing share in the gross value of output...