Budgetary allocation to a particular sector indicates how much priority the government assigns to that sector as compared to the rest. A preliminary analysis by the Inclusive Media for Change team indicates that the actual expenditure (net of receipts and recoveries) by two of the country’s most important ministries, namely the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoAFW) and the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) was less than 1 percent...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Those who inhabit the top 1 per cent of the wealth pyramid in India own 73 per cent of the wealth generated in the country last year, an NGO has claimed. In the last 12 months, the "wealth of this elite group increased by Rs 20.91 lakh crore. This amount is equivalent to the total budget of the central government in 2017-18," Oxfam India said in a statement...

-Down to Earth Income inequality makes agrarian crisis challenging; inequality is worse among farmers than the formal economy economists Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty recently concluded after a long study that inequality is at its peak in India. It is embedded in popular conscience: “Top 1 per cent of earners captured 22 per cent of total income in the country.” Their study–covering consumption, government accounts and income tax data from 1922...

-The Hindu Business Line The government must universalise social security pensions for the elderly, single women and persons with disabilities and also operationalise the maternity entitlement scheme at the earliest, says Reetika Khera, Associate Professor of Economics at IIT-Delhi. In an interview to BusinessLine, Khera argued against the use of Aadhaar for authentication of beneficiaries and said it has “no role in plugging leakages or in the identification of correct beneficiaries”....

-Livemint.com Immediate challenges to economy top talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior ministers and economists, sector experts from across India New Delhi: The government on Wednesday signalled that the Union budget for 2018-19 would include solutions for vexed problems such as rural distress, weak employment and revival of private investments. These immediate challenges to the economy topped the extensive discussion that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior cabinet colleagues had on Wednesday...