The government will formulate a strategy to make India self-reliant in edible oils by boosting domestic output of oilseeds and launch a comprehensive programme to support dairy farmers, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Thursday. India imports a large quantity of edible oils to meet the domestic demand. During the 2022-23 marketing year (November-October), the country imported nearly 165 lakh tonnes of cooking oils, valuing a whopping Rs 1.38 lakh crore.
NGOs have acquired a certain critical mass and are increasingly becoming powerful voices in public discourse.
The meetings with various ministries will go on till December 12, according to an office notice
There was no announcement from the government on guaranteeing a minimum basic income, which is the need of the hour. The announcements on portability of ration cards and affordable rental housing to workers are for the long and medium terms. Migrant workers need immediate relief.
The Bill could be introduced in Lok Sabha very soon.
Other than Gujarat, Odisha and West Bengal, call centres would come up in Assam, Manipur, Tripura.
Get more people working, get more people working in modern manufacturing and services in our cities, and get people working better and longer, suggests Naushad Forbes, past president, CII.
Rahul Gandhi on took a dig at PM Modi saying his government's praise of the UPA's flagship scheme MGNREGA is a "shining example" of Modi's "political wisdom".
The focus is likely to be on consolidation and improvement of existing rural-centric programmes to ensure their completion ahead of the next general elections in 2019, rather than announcement of new schemes. Sanjeeb Mukherjee and Arup Roychoudhury report.
The substantially increased economic dualism may exert lasting negative influences which could include a reduced potential for economic growth; the persistence of a very weak employment and poverty situation; rising social and political discord; and heightened vulnerability to geopolitical challenges, cautions Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
A programme that endeavours to graduate the poorest people could have seminal implications for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
India must be prepared to deal with climate disasters, geopolitical confrontations, and social strife linked to global events, asserts Jayant Sinha, chairman of Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance.
Data captured in central government records have a lag.
Jaitley's Budget has the potential to change the face of Modi's Bharat
On Gandhi Jayanti, she also invoked the Father of the Nation, to assail the government which, she claimed, swears by his name but demolishes his ideals through its actions.
Rural budget set to increase; likely to enhance market linkages for agri commodities
Amid reports that the government plans to reach out to Congress for passage of crucial bills, senior leader Ahmed Patel on Friday said it would be "bizarre" for the Narendra Modi dispensation to expect support from the party after it has diluted UPA's policies and programmes.
Of the total cash outgo Rs 40,000 crore is towards enhanced expenditure under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program and Rs 33,771.48 crore have been sought for direct benefit transfer under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and National Social Assistance Programme.
The centre pays only an insulting Rs 200 per pensioner each month at a tight-fisted 0.04 per cent of GDP, among the lowest in the world. Instead, as illustrated by Jean Drze, one option is for NYAY to provide individual rather than household entitlements to all pensioners of at least Rs 1200 per month.
Joseph Stiglitz says India should not bothered on inflation and instead focus on rapid growth.
However, ration card, driving licence, voter identity card, Kisan passbook with photo, job card issued under MGNREGS and a certificate issued by a gazetted officer or a tehsildar will be admissible as proof of identity for people to get the benefits under the scheme till the time they get Aadhaar.
80% of beneficiaries in 300 districts to be linked with direct benefits transfer
Instructions from the Union rural development ministry to the state officials on the WhatsApp group show that the chat was also used as an off-record avenue for the Union government to pass instructions, which it could not have done through formal channels, keeping the law in mind.
From 17 pre-school centres to 285 in less than five years - Hippocampus has brought the joy of learning to kids.
Had Finance Minister Sitharaman thought a little more about the middle class, disadvantaged sections, and the poor who are struggling, it would have been an inclusive Budget that would have made history, notes Ramesh Menon.
India's likely medium-term potential growth will almost certainly be markedly lower than that experienced in pre-pandemic years, warns Shankar Acharya, former chief economic advisor to the Government of India.
NDA under Mr Modi is as focused on the rural poor with doles and hand-outs as the UPA under Dr Singh was.
The mega campaign, to start on Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary, will be conducted just before the elections in three major Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states and also before the 2019 general elections.
Talks on with P&G, HUL, Patanjali, among others to push their products via 250,000 common centres
Could it have been more reformist? Of course, but this is an election year Budget, observes Akash Prakash.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party for its "politics of India Shining," Rahul Gandhi on Thursday reached out to the poor and rural youths in Bundelkhand, hard-selling the United Progressive Alliance's flagship schemes of food security, land acquisition and job guarantee programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
The Budget has stuck to annual increases in agri credit targets.
The number of centrally sponsored schemes have increased to 35 in FY22 from 30 in FY21 and central sector schemes have increased to 704 from 685 in the previous year, reports Dilasha Seth.
An NSSO survey has revealed that some are using the new toilets as store rooms.
A look at the key decisions taken by the Narendra Modi government in its six months.
As the world awaits the end of the global pandemic, rural Bengal might be witnessing a recession unfolding in bits and pieces. With factories and tea gardens closing down, agricultural income falling and storm Aila ravaging a large part of deltaic West Bengal in 2010, migration gradually became a norm.
The finance minister has stayed true to her commitment to fiscal consolidation, even though the pace of the decline in the deficit could have been faster, notes A K Bhattacharya.
Hosabale blamed the "faulty' economic policies of the earlier governments for the "ills" in the economy.
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