-Hindustan Times Here are three charts which can help us understand this. If there is one point on which the Union Budget 2021-22 has received bipartisan praise, it is the fiscal transparency it has brought into budgetary calculations. By bringing hitherto uncounted expenditure heads into the budgetary numbers, and accounting for past dues, the budget has done away with the dubious practice of artificially underreporting the fiscal deficit numbers. While this is a...

-Press released by Right to Food Campaign dated 3rd February, 2021 In its press release dated 3rd February, 2021, Right to Food Campaign has stated that the Union Budget 2021-22 reduced financial allocations for crucial social security schemes such as the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), midday meals, maternity entitlements, and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Please click here to access the press release. Kindly click here, here, here...

-The Indian Express While the government has failed to deliver what was promised through the main budget and subsequent mini-budgets, estimates for next year also point to missed opportunities to use fiscal measures to revive the ailing economy. Expectations from Budget 2021 were high. Unsurprisingly so, for an economy battered by two years of slowdown, with a pre-pandemic annual growth rate of 4 per cent being a decadal low and the subsequent...

-The New Indian Express The building permit will be cancelled and a fine will be imposed if the details submitted by the owner or licensee in the declarations are found to be wrong THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state cabinet meeting has decided to bring in an ordinance to amend the Kerala Municipality Act 1994 and Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 in order to speed up the issuance of building construction permits. As per the...

-Down to Earth Air pollution is a transboundary problem, it transcends rural and urban boundaries. But the issue is rarely discussed and action plans are rigid Air pollution in India is generally perceived as a problem of the cities and by the cities. Quite predictably, solutions have been designed for the cities. Initiatives to alleviate poor air remain conspicuously absent in rural areas. Rural air pollution has usually been ignored by scientists and...