Believe it or not, the total revenue foregone in 2017-18 on account of special tax rates, exemptions, deductions, rebates, deferrals and credits -- broadly termed as 'tax expenditures' (an indirect subsidy) – that was given to corporate taxpayers has been more than 50 percent of the expenditure incurred by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoAFW) and the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) altogether in that year. In other...
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Why Budget 2018 is too late, too little for the rural economy -Himanshu
-Livemint.com While Budget 2018’s agriculture focus may not revive the rural economy, whether it fetches any votes for the Narendra Modi govt will only be known next year Since this was the last full budget of the Narendra Modi-led government before the general elections next year, its contours were more or less known to everybody. The budget in that sense did not surprise. Given the tight fiscal situation, it was expected that...
More »Union budget shows "no concern" for hunger, malnutrition, rural distress, reduces maternal benefit allocation
-Counterview.net Calling the 2018-19 Union budget "highly disappointing", the top advocacy group, Right to Food Campaign (RFC), in a comprehensive analysis, has said, it has "miserably failed to respond to the present situation of rural distress and mass unemployment", adding, "Despite a spate of starvation deaths in different parts of the country, the budget makes no mention of hunger or malnutrition." Thus, RFC says, "There was some hope that the budget would...
More »Another woman dies of undernutrition and exhaustion in Jharkhand after denial of PDS rations for four months due to failure of Aadhaar-based biometric authentication
-Right to Food Campaign On 23 January 2018, 30-year-old Lukhi Murmu of Dhawadangal village of Hiranpur block in Pakur (Jharkhand) succumbed to prolonged undernutrition and exhaustion. She lived with her 14-year old sister Phulin in extreme poverty. Their meals usually comprised solely of rice and they even had to sleep hungry at times. The sisters’ deprivation worsened over the last four months when they were unable to access their ration from...
More »Despite having a food security legislation, spending on food subsidy is low
Recent data from the National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4) shows that about one-third of children in India is undernourished – 35.7 percent children below 5 years are underweight (too thin for age), 38.4 percent are stunted (too short for age) and 21.0 percent are wasted (too thin for height). It is also revealed that the level of anaemia among women and girls (aged 15-49 years) has stagnated marginally over the...
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