-Livemint.com Growth in exports, easing inflation, and higher manufacturing activity have lifted India to the top half of Mint’s Emerging Markets Tracker for the first time in four months India climbed five spots to attain the third position among key emerging markets in January, the latest update to Mint’s emerging markets tracker shows. Rising exports, falling inflation, and greater manufacturing activity boosted India’s rank in January although it still remains a few...

School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...

-Firstpost.com The biggest hoodwink is the starved Poshan Abhiyan 2.0, which though merges the Supplementary Nutrition Programme and the Poshan Abhiyan, has been allocated an amount less than what was prescribed for Anganwadi services in 2020 In a post-truth world, the plain cold statistics in the fine print of the Union Budget 2021 often reveal more than the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's speech. The budget for NREGA labourers has been slashed despite...

-The Hindu That there is no targeted employment programme to alleviate the immediate crisis is a matter of concern The Budget, at its simplest, is the government’s tentative income and expenditure statement. Like all financial statements, the devil lies in the fine print. At its broadest, the Budget is a pious statement of the government’s policy and ideological intentions. It is also the government’s statement of how it seeks to tackle the...

-Livemint.com The Survey expects the Indian economy to grow by 11% in real terms (adjusted for inflation) during 2021-22. This is close to the growth of 11.5% forecast by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is good news. The Economic Survey of 2020-21 was published earlier in the day today. Like in the previous years, the Economic Survey tries to summarise the state of the Indian economy across various dimensions. Here are ten...