One looks forward to the Finance Minister's budget speech with a hope that it spells some new major initiatives and schemes for development, and that it might promise any major allocation of resources to any sector, besides fresh tax proposals. In the case of education sector, one might feel disappointed at the proposals made in the Union budget for 2010-11 on both counts. No new initiatives are proposed; no major...

The health ministry has questioned the benefits to India of a proposed bill aimed at regulating the entry of foreign universities, unleashing the most scathing criticism the draft legislation has faced from within the government. The draft Foreign Education (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill contains loopholes that could deny India benefits to medical education and could even hurt the sector, the health ministry has said. The criticism of the bill...

  KEY TRENDS   • According to the CMS-India Corruption Study 2018, among states, 73 percent households in Telangana, 38 percent in Tamil Nadu, 36 percent in Karnataka, 35 percent in Bihar, 29 percent in Delhi, 23 percent in Madhya Pradesh; 22 percent in Punjab and 20 percent households in Rajasthan experienced demand for bribe or had to use contacts/middlemen, to access the public services @@    • According to the CMS-ICS 2017 study, the states where...

**page** [inside]KEY TRENDS of the Union Budget 2023-24[/inside] Budget 2023-24 is the last full budget before the general election scheduled for 2024. An analysis of the budget allocations suggests that the union government has squeezed expenditure, particularly on food subsidy and the NREGA budget, while boosting Capital expenditure and giving the middle class tax benefits. Social sector activists working on Right to Food, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) came out with...