-The Telegraph Thiruvananthapuram: The NDA government's economic survey has referred to a stalled airport project in Kerala as a live one, shocking the local Sangh parivar that sees its success in blocking the plan as a feather in its cap. The Sangh's efforts had led to the National Green Tribunal quashing the previous UPA government's environmental clearance to the private airport project at Aranmula, a Unesco Global Heritage Village in Pathanamthitta district,...

-The Indian Express Benefits of Rs.33,000 crore will flow every year to the accounts of beneficiaries The Union Budget 2015-16 proposes a 10-fold scaling up of direct benefit transfers (DBT) during the next financial year as a key expenditure control measure. The move is expected to lead to accurate targeting of beneficiaries, de-duplication, reduction of fraud and elimination of waste and leakage in public programmes and schemes. The total number of beneficiaries under 35...

-The Indian Express The Union budget is largely about the intentions and policies of the government of the day, as well as the arithmetic of resource mobilisation and allocation to achieve certain ends in the economy. The diagnostics of various economic problems and their probable solutions are generally found in the Economic Survey. The Economic Survey clearly indicates that growth in agri-GDP in FY15 has collapsed to just 1.1 per cent, while...

-Business Standard Environment ministry readies draft, which allows industry to fell trees in traditional forest areas without consent of gram sabhas After a lot of back and forth, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is ready with a notification to dilute tribal rights that would make it possible for most industries to chop down traditional forests without the consent of gram sabhas - a precondition that exists at the moment. After the Prime...

-Reuters NEW DELHI: India's main public health programmes, aimed at millions of rural poor, have been in disarray for months because the government changed the way that over $1.3 billion of central funds were distributed, according to data and letters seen by Reuters. In a bid last year to give states more power, the Union health ministry started sending funds for public health programmes to state treasuries, instead of direct transfers to...