-The Indian Express After a meeting of the Congress Working Committee which approved the draft manifesto, Rahul said the Nyunatam Aay Yojana (Nyay) scheme was a “ground breaking idea’ and would mark the beginning of the final assault on poverty. CONGRESS PRESIDENT Rahul Gandhi Monday said if his party was voted to power, its government would roll out a minimum income scheme guaranteeing Rs 72,000 a year to the bottom most...

  The budgetary allocation for Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) as a proportion of total budgetary expenditure has been reduced marginally during the Interim Budget 2019-20. It may have happened because the coverage of gross cropped area under the scheme could not keep pace with the target that was set during the last two years. The Status of Implementation of Budget Announcements 2017-18, which was presented during the Union Budget 2018-19,...

-The Indian Express Government’s claim that structural changes to the economy are paying off, and that is being used to give back to the people, is problematic. The Interim Union Budget 2019 is no less than a full budget with changes in taxation and announcement of lucrative schemes for various sections of the population. The recent losses in three major assembly elections rang alarm bells for the ruling dispensation. With the...

-The Telegraph There are enormous questions about implementation, and the first issue is that of identifying the farmers Everyone expected the Narendra Modi government to do something big — or at least promise something big — before the general elections. Everyone also sensed that it would be something to do with farmers, one of the economic and social concerns that have now also become a political talking point. But perhaps no one...

-Hindustan Times Fiscal prudence has been compromised in favour of pleasing every conceivable vote bank the NDA can appeal to What a difference five years make. In July 2014, when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) unveiled its first full budget, finance minister Arun Jaitley made clear that the NDA was against “mindless populism”. “India,” he said in a media interaction, “has to make a choice between mindless populism and fiscal prudence…. the...