-The Hindu The Budget overlooks the fact that human capabilities are as important as physical capital for economic growth and the quality of life. It goes back to the days when growth and development sounded synonymous, physical capital was thought to be the key, and human capital took a back seat Once upon a time, around the end of the Second World War, there was a naive view in development economics that...

-The Telegraph Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today charged the Centre with abolishing the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) in "clear violation" of the Act mandated by Parliament and said he was thinking of moving court against the decision. "I met Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on February 26 and specifically apprised him that the BRGF abolition was in contravention of the Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000. The special assistance under BRGF had...

-Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) Press Release   New Delhi: The direction indicated by the Finance Minister's Budget Speech in general and that of the taxation policies in particular indicate a quantum leap being taken towards market fundamentalism. In the absence of any increase in the overall spending capacity of the government (Centre and States combined), the steps for fiscal decentralization (from Centre to States) have been constrained, implying only...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The plan outlay of 2015-16 reflects the compositional shift in the allocations for various Programmes and Schemes in view of high devolution; 42% of Union Taxes, to States as per the recommendation of 14th Finance Commission. Making his Budget Speech while presenting the General Budget 2015-16, the Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley said that consequent to this substantially higher devolution, many schemes on the State...

-The Hindu Shanta Kumar panel favoured a drastic cut in beneficiaries The Narendra Modi government is not in a hurry to accept the controversial recommendation of the Shanta Kumar panel to cut the public distribution system beneficiaries for subsidised foodgrains to 40 from 67 per cent under the National Food Security Act, highly placed government sources have indicated to The Hindu. With several crucial Assembly elections in the offing this and the next...