-The Times of India NEW DELHI: When finance minister P Chidambaram presents his first interim budget on Monday, he is expected to devote a significant chunk of his speech - which may be between 12 and 18 pages - to UPA government's spending on social sector schemes, especially health, education and rural development. But what is probably going to slip through is the fact that these sectors actually witnessed a comparatively...
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Vote-on-account not to disappoint on Fiscal deficit-Vrishti Beniwal
-The Business Standard Chidambaram may announce higher fund allocation for the social sector, with focus on education, food, women and rural masses In his last Budget speech as finance minister in the UPA-II government, P Chidambaram will have a lot to say on Monday but much of it is likely to be high on intent and low on content. Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, interim Budget 2014-15 is likely to be...
More »MGNREGA: A tale of wasted efforts
-Live Mint The scheme represents Rs.2.3 trillion spent on wasteful rural consumption This week marked the eighth anniversary of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's key rural intervention, launched in 200 districts initially in February 2006. To the extent that such populist schemes helped raise wages without raising productivity. They have contributed more to inflation than to rural wealth. Worse, such schemes have...
More »Compulsion by stealth-R Ramakumar
-The Hindu The UPA government's response to questions on Aadhaar's voluntariness continues to be marked by ‘intentional ambiguity.' Compulsion by stealth is used to camouflage the use of Aadhaar as a neo-liberal policy tool "This debate is ... about our specific disagreement on the meaning of that one word," i.e. "the Government now seek to persuade us that ‘voluntary' actually means ‘compulsory'." That was Nick Clegg in the United Kingdom's House of Commons...
More »Unkept promise -TK Rajalakshmi
-Frontline The tussle within some Central government Ministries over proposed cuts in the budget for rural development schemes has affected a promise made to senior citizens. THEIR wizened faces said it all. Though there was disappointment, there was also a glimmer of hope that their trek to the national capital would not go in vain. For almost a month, senior citizens, most of them poor, had been pouring into New Delhi from...
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