-The Hindu NITI Aayog’s draft working paper to strengthen the ICDS programme in urban areas For every 100 anganwadi beneficiaries in the country, only seven are in urban areas, according to the government’s response to a Right to Information (RTI) query from The Hindu. This is primarily because of a severe lack of anganwadis in cities, leading to poor coverage of the government’s flagship programme in early childhood development.   Six services Anganwadis or day-care...

-The Hindu Business Line While proposals on agri-warehousing and viability-gap funding are positive, MGNREGA cutbacks could have been avoided The Economic Survey had a full chapter on agriculture and food management issues, highlighting the role of agricultural GDP; Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime, mechanisation of agriculture, farm credit, crop insurance, agri research and education, including in allied sectors such as livestock and fisheries, food processing and agricultural trade, besides rationalisation of food...

-The Hindu The 15th Finance Commission, by and large, has gone with the approach and methodology of earlier Commissions The appointment of the Fifteenth Finance Commission by the President of India under Article 280 of the Constitution was notified on November 27, 2017. It was required to submit the report by October 30, 2019 for five years for the period 2020-21 to 2024-25. However, due to various political and fiscal developments, notifications...

-The Hindu Citizens should not be asked to provide the same information more than once to government agencies In June 2014, the Modi government set out to change how the government worked. At that time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke in a meeting of Union Secretaries about “reforming the public service delivery system and bridging the governance deficit” by introducing “self-certification” in place of “affidavits”. That event revealed his enthusiasm and commitment...

-The Indian Express The savings rate, expressed as a percentage of the gross domestic product, reflects the pool of investible funds within the country that are available for the government and private businesses to use for investment purposes. The government’s plan to gradually get rid of all exemptions and deductions under the personal income tax regime — in a bid to provide lower taxes and a simplified tax architecture as well as...