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...

Ranchi: It was a budget aimed at sweetening the bitter price rise pill. From cutting down VAT on diesel, sweets and ice- cream to making foodgrains available at Re 1 per kg for the poor, deputy chief minister Raghubar Das today presented an annual budget which focused on rural development, food security and social welfare. Chanting the “inclusive growth” mantra, Das, the BJP face in the Shibu Soren government, showed...

The Supreme Court has ruled that fast-track courts, set up to ease the load of pending cases in subordinate courts, will continue to function in all states till further orders. Most of these courts were created under a centrally funded scheme on April 1, 2001, and were expected to lapse within five years. But they have since been given repeated extensions, the last one valid till March 31, 2010. “The scheme will...

Bhubaneswar: Poor budgetary expenditure has been a cause of headache for the state government with less than a month left for the end of this fiscal. An official review revealed that the government departments had been able to spend only 56 per cent of budgetary allocations on an average by January-end. Interestingly, the steel and mines department tops the laggard departments showing the lowest expenditure of 5 per cent, followed by co-operation...

The National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) has said that the budget proposals for 2010-11 have ignored the most vulnerable sections of society, particularly the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs). Though there is an increase in the budgets for the Ministries of Tribal Affairs and Social Justice and Empowerment, the overall denial continues to be substantial this year — over Rs.25, 000 crore, said N.Paul Divakar,...