-Newsclick.in The Modi government has created a huge mess of its finances in the past year cutting spending and borrowing heavily. When the Union Budget is presented tomorrow (February 1), the government will have its hands full and pockets empty. In the current financial year, which will end on March 31, currently available information shows that revenues (government income) are going to be much short of what was estimated in last year’s...

-TheWire.in One of the most disturbing effects of the pandemic has been on the nutritional needs of the disadvantaged. The Budget needs to prioritise addressing this issue. The pandemic led disruptions of nutrition services have exacerbated India’s existing burden of undernutrition. Children did not get the mid-day meals and supplementary nutrition under the anganwadi services scheme they were registered under. Critical health services like immunisation, iron-folic acide and calcium supplementation, treatment of...

Commenting on the recently released fifth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data for 17 states and five Union Territories (UTs) in an article published in The Indian Express (dated 6th January, 2021), Arvind Subramanian and his co-authors have stated that India has made progress on certain outcomes, including infant mortality rate (IMR), under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and neonatal mortality rate (NNMR). Relying on various rounds of NFHS data,...

-TheWire.in Researchers have found that small and marginal farmers and Dalit landless labourers are worst affected by the region's agrarian distress. Sangrur/Patiala (Punjab): In the villages of Punjab, strike a conversation on farming  expenses with anyone, and they will say, “Karja tan hai hi (Of course, we have taken loans).” It’s these loans – from both institutional and non-institutional sources – that largely help the rural economy run in the state. But...

-Livemint.com The country can’t expect to be a superpower with gender disparities worsening the way they are The latest bulletins from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) present a dismal picture. The calamitous fall in employment in April 2020 was followed by a partial recovery in May and June, but the recovery tapered off by September. October and November saw declines again. This slowdown in economic activity can be seen in...