-Newsclick.in As the numbers show, the government isn’t putting its money where its mouth is Everyone, including the government, recognises the special health and nutrition needs of adolescent girls. The only trouble is, the Union government forgets this at the time of actually providing funds for nutrition. Why else would the government cut the funds for the specific schemes for nutrition to only a half of the original allocation? In the Budget for...

-Livemint.com With no significant spending increase to boost consumption or other major reform, the 2020 Budget may lack the firepower to reignite the economy A growth slump, a precarious fiscal position and rising inflation: these are extraordinary times for the Indian economy. Yet in the 2020 Budget, these extraordinary times did not lead to the extraordinary measures so many economists were clamouring for. Like previous Budgets under this government, the latest one...

-Down to Earth Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget has all the ingredients to deepen India’s farm crisis These are desperate times for India. Rural unemployment was at a 45-year-high while consumption expenditure of rural families fell 9 per cent between 2011-12 and 2017-18, according to a report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), which the government never released but got leaked to the media in November 2019. Between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the income of farmers...

-Livemint.com * There is no such thing as a freebie in economics because ultimately somebody has to bear the cost of the supposedly free giveaways * CAG’s financial audit for 2013-18 concluded that Delhi has no debt sustainability issues as its GSDP grew faster than its public debt The Aam Aadmi Party’s win in the Delhi elections has inspired others to replicate its strategy. The West Bengal government’s last full Budget before state...

-Newsclick.in Joblessness is zooming, inflation is at six-year high led by food inflation, exports are down further, industrial production is stagnant and investment is at a standstill. In the last six months or so, the Modi government has supposedly been paying close attention to the sinking economy, with a flurry of meetings, announcements of freebies to corporates, fervent assurances to markets and Budget shenanigans to supposedly keep the deficit in check and...