-Livemint.com * There is no such thing as a freebie in economics because ultimately somebody has to bear the cost of the supposedly free giveaways * CAG’s financial audit for 2013-18 concluded that Delhi has no debt sustainability issues as its GSDP grew faster than its public debt The Aam Aadmi Party’s win in the Delhi elections has inspired others to replicate its strategy. The West Bengal government’s last full budget before state...

-Down to Earth Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget has all the ingredients to deepen India’s farm crisis These are desperate times for India. Rural unemployment was at a 45-year-high while consumption expenditure of rural families fell 9 per cent between 2011-12 and 2017-18, according to a report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), which the government never released but got leaked to the media in November 2019. Between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the income of farmers...

-Newsclick.in The latest education budget needs condemnation but got kudos. In recent times there has been growing discontent in universities and colleges over rising fees and cost of education. The growing worries about access to higher education for students of modest means extend beyond this, to the steady privatisation of higher education. Already, according to the government’s own data, nearly 77% of the colleges, accounting for about two-thirds of the students, are...

-The Hindu While there are well-equipped schemes to address malnutrition, funding and policy gaps are problem areas A few months ago, the Global Hunger Index, reported that India suffers from “serious” hunger, ranked 102 out of 117 countries, and that just a tenth of children between six to 23 months are fed a minimum acceptable diet. The urgency around nutrition was reflected in the Union Finance Minister’s Budget speech, as she referred...

-The Indian Express Some fear such a census will “further marginalise” the descendants of Bengali-speaking migrants in Assam Guwahati: Assam’s Welfare of Minorities Minister Ranjit Dutta has confirmed the state’s plans to implement a census to identify Assam’s ‘khilonjiya’, or indigenous Muslim population, this year. On Tuesday, Dutta will meet with various representatives of the indigenous Assamese Muslim community to seek their “suggestions” in finalising the framework of the census. “A sum of...