-The Indian Express Instead of embarking on a massive administrative exercise with uncertain benefits, it is possible to think of another combination of public interventions that would actually ensure minimum income to a much larger proportion of the population. The Congress party’s recent declaration that, if voted to power, it will seek to ensure a minimum income to 20 per cent of the poorest households in the country, is laudable in...
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Few details, Rs 3.6 lakh crore-question: Will it be a top-up or subsidy tweak? -Aanchal Magazine
-The Indian Express According to the Central Statistics Office, there were 24.95 crore households in India in 2011. If every household in the bottom 20 per cent is eligible for this income, this translates into a total expenditure of about Rs 3.6 lakh crore annually. When Congress president Rahul Gandhi announced that his party, if voted to power, would offer a minimum income of Rs 72,000 a year for the poorest 20...
More »Rural distress: Last year of Govt saw highest demand for MNREGA jobs in 8 yrs -Shalini Nair
-The Indian Express In 2014-15, the first year under of the NDA government when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had dismissed MGNREGA as “the living monument of UPA’s failure’, the person-days generated was just 166 crore. In an indicator of rural distress, the last year of the NDA government shows a marked increase in the demand for jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Official data show that...
More »PM Kisan is fine, but raise investment to make farming sustainable -Ashok Gulati & Ritika Juneja
-Financial Express Just ahead of the 2019 general elections dates announcement, the prime minister launched the centrally sponsored ‘Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi’ (PM-Kisan) scheme of Rs 75,000 crore for small and marginal farm families. On February 24, 2019, from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, he transferred the first installment of Rs 2,000 each (out of `6,000 per annum) into the bank accounts of 1.01 crore farm families, amounting to `2,021 crore....
More »The problem is jobs, not wages -Praveen Chakravarty
-The Hindu There is obfuscation over both the existence of a jobs crisis and the diagnosis of it It is well established that India is staring at a massive jobs crisis. Every single survey points to jobs as the biggest issue concerning voters, especially the youth. Yet, the Prime Minister and the government steadfastly refuse to even acknowledge this issue, let alone address it. India’s jobs crisis is an economic issue, not a...
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