The union budget for 2022-23, presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in parliament Tuesday, has been described as growth-oriented. In Prime minister Narendra Modi’s words, “This year’s budget will facilitate more infrastructure, more growth, and more jobs.” The budget focuses primarily on four pillars: productivity, financing investments, climat
Amidst the third Covid-19 wave raging the country, India`s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman delivered her shortest ever budget speech and presented the budget of 2022-23 on February 1. With a view to provide impetus to the country’s GDP growth, this budget is deemed to be pro-growth with focus on substantial government expenditure on capital expenditure and investments. With not much t
The Union Budget 2022-23 will be presented on February 1, amidst the third COVID-19 wave. After the two waves of the pandemic, the GDP for FY 21 contracted by 7.3% but following a V-shaped recovery, the FY 22 growth is expected to be 9.22%. Maintaining the trajectory of this growth, while combatting the third and any further COVID-19 waves, makes this budget extremely important. Hence, in this
Why sanitation in budget 2022-23 is important? The upcoming budget 2022-23 will be of significant value as India is in the middle of the third wave of the pandemic. The budget presents an opportunity to aid the specific sectors of the economy to recover as well as combat the severity of the potential upcoming waves of COVID-19. In doing so, we propose that ‘Water,
The making of the Indian Constitution and its subsequent adoption on January 26, 1950 required the founding members to go through several pieces of the legal document that the country already had during the British rule, let alone the Constitution of other countries. Until 1857, these laws, although applied during the Company rule, were promulgated by the British parliament at the behest of the
The anxiety and chaos that we face on our city roads are endemic, dangerous, and deadly. It emerges from a combination of too many vehicles, road conditions, ineffective traffic controls, poor planning and lack of innovative corrections, loose enforcement, and lacking traffic discipline in the commuters, to name a few. We know for a fact that the sale of automobiles has been rising exponentiall
In 2010, I attended a self-development program called ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. This program deeply impacted me, and I underwent a life-changing experience. Stephen Covey writes, “The way we see the problem is the problem.” We must allow ourselves to undergo paradigm shifts – to change ourselves fundamentally and not just alter our attitudes
Once the schedule for the next assembly elections has been announced, there is a flurry of activity around building caste coalitions. This is more intense in the most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, which is the most important state in India in any election, in view of its large population estimated at 23 crore in 2021, more than the population of Russia and Britain combined together
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) compiles an annual ranking of countries based on an index comprising of health, education, and income. For the year 2020, for which data has been released by UNDP, India’s rank has been 131 out of total 189 countries ranked. This is absolutely unacceptable and evidence that successive governments have failed to give good governance and
Adopting a ‘citizen-centric’ approach, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) launched last September marked an important milestone in India’s evolving journey towards open digital platforms. ABDM strengthens the equity and accessibility of health services through a technology-driven, holistic healthcare programme approach. By providing a unique ID to every Indi
I. What is AI? For many, the term ‘AI’ still evokes the image of either a Terminator-type robot or a disembodied, talking computer many times smarter than humans. And more often than not, the human race invariably needs to be rescued from their clutches, preferably by a bunch of easy-on-the-eyes Hollywood stars. Fortunately, the reality is considerabl
When I was a young child, I used to read the Panchtantra and the English stories and fairy tales. They taught me many things, like never to speak to strangers, never to trust anybody blindly, always help the needy and the weak. I became aware of many moralistic and positive traits from these stories. But the stories from which I learnt the absolute righteous way of life was from our great epics
The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal to amend the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. The proposal seeks to increase the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, bringing it at par with men. I welcome this proposal as a progressive move towards empowering women and strengthen the tenets of gender equality. But I have a fundamental concern with regards to the efficacy of the proposed
The pandemic affected various ethnic and social groups quite disproportionately. This becomes particularly important for a country like India, where many social groups are yet to be integrated with the mainstream population. Development disparities and crimes against weaker sections of society are indicators of the prevalent gaps in the dream of social inclusion. Perhaps the pandemic undid sign
At the outset, for those who are not familiar with the nomenclature ‘Hindu Rate of Growth’, it refers to the low economic growth in post-independent India till the 1990s, when several economic liberalisation measures were undertaken. Till the 1990s, the growth rate was around 4%, which accelerated later after the 1990s to 8-9%. The banks have three major legal ways t
A few months after the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-Operative Bank Ltd (PMC Bank) was put under moratorium in September 2019, I met an announcer in a function on banking organised by an industry body, with which I have been associated. She was young, pretty beautiful and had a sweet voice and modulation. She had dreams in her eyes of getting married, and for which she had saved all her earnings of
For those not familiar with chess nomenclature, a gambit, like king’s gambit, is move that offers a material sacrifice of a pawn or bishop, in return for a strategic advantage that may benefit the person initiating the gambit. The respondent has the option to accept or decline the sacrifice and pursue countermoves in its best wisdom and interest. In a dramatic turnaround, t
In 2015, India started its Smart Cities Mission (SCM) with the purpose of harnessing technology to initiate infrastructural makeovers and transform the country into a more liveable, economically dynamic and environmentally sustainable nation within five years [see: https://pqars.nic.in/annex/253/A30.pdf]. Since then, cities ac
India has made overhauling commitment in the ongoing COP 26 at Glasgow, where it sets the deadline for becoming net zero emitter by 2070. This shows India’s resolute approach for combating climate change effects and sets an example for its developing counterpart. I often call it the “utopia of net zero emission”, and it is a fairly complex task to execute especially for India,
Access to decent healthcare facilities is a basic right of every individual. But it wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that for a majority of our country’s population – the 65% that resides in rural areas – that right isn’t accorded. The rural healthcare infrastructure in India leaves a lot to be desired. And all the critical problems plaguing it became more evident du
