-The Hindu While consumers will be glad to see their fuel bills slashed by the advent of a favourable rate structure under the GST, State governments will have to contend with an erosion in tax revenue. At the time of writing, petrol was retailing at Rs.82.48/litre in Mumbai, roughly 62% more than the Rs.50.8/litre Pakistanis shell out for a tank of gas. This is despite the fact that crude oil prices are...
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Jean Dreze, development economist and social activist, interviewed by Sagar (CaravanMagazine.in)
-CaravanMagazine.in The economist Jean Drèze’s book, Sense and Solidarity, published in late 2017, deals with the impact of Aadhaar on social-welfare programmes, such as the National Food Security Act and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, among other things. Drèze was a member of the United Progressive Alliance government’s advisory council, which designed the NFSA and MGNREGS. He co-authored some of the essays in this book with colleagues and...
More »Improving social audits -Suchi Pande & Rakesh R Dubbudu
-The Hindu Telangana’s experience is instructive The institutionalisation of “social audits” to ensure implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been challenging. Since being included in the 2005 Act at the behest of social movements, social audits have been ineffective in most parts of the country due to government indifference. So far, 26 States have created social audit units (SAUs), but the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) detailed guidelines...
More »Finding sensible solutions to sanitary waste -Nahla Nainar
-The Hindu Two non-profit enterprises offer reusable cloth pads as a sustainable alternative to synthetic branded products Tiruchi: Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) is a hot topic these days. Whether in the form of stylishly advertised disposable sanitary products that vie with shampoos and vehicles for prime time viewership, or films on innovators who have created low-cost napkins, the taboo around the subject in India seems to be slowly disappearing — the operative...
More »West Bengal's Public Service panel inactive, RTI reply reveals -Soumya Das
-The Hindu Not conducted hearings: RTI reply The State commission to ensure delivery of Public Services has been inactive since its inception in 2015, an RTI reply by the West Bengal government has revealed. The West Bengal Right to Public Service Commission has not conducted any hearing since its inception and is unable to provide any information about it through RTI, an activist claimed. The RTI queries were filed by Kolkata-based Biswanath Goswami. The...
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