-PTI/ Newsclick.in The economist said the word 'freebies' indicates the class position of those who use it. New Delhi: Economist Jayati Ghosh said that 'basic needs' like nutrition, healthcare, housing and education, which the government should provide for its citizens, are not freebies, while asserting that the poor are more entitled to receive their basic needs. Ghosh noted that the word 'freebies' indicates the class position of those who use it. "India has one...

-Business Standard Social security scheme should reach the poor and underprivileged, says official The Centre will bar Income Taxpayers from availing themselves of the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) from October 1 this year to ensure that the scheme’s benefits reach the poor and underprivileged. Atal Pension Yojana, launched in 2015, is a social security scheme for citizens aged 18 to 40. Subscribers, based on their contributions, get a guaranteed monthly pension of Rs...

-The Hindu It was a long struggle for Suvam to get his ID cards printed with only his mother’s name The PAN allotment process is perhaps not as cumbersome as it used to be. But for Suvam Sinha, it took seven years to get his PAN card and other documents — the way he wished them. That is, without his father’s name on them. On February 11, the 23-year-old celebrated his victory with...

-The Hindu It would be much easier for the government to provide relief to people if the tax base was wider, says Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj, noting that four crore people don’t file returns though the tax department gets some TDS collections on their account. With major customs duty rationalisation done and corporate tax settled, the government hopes to finish some pending reforms in personal income tax and GST, creating a...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...