15th Finance Commission’s interim report

Context The report of the 15th Finance Commission headed by N K Singh was tabled in Parliament. The Finance Commission and its purpose The Finance Commission is a body set up under Article 280 of the Constitution, primarily to recommend measures and methods on how revenues, which the government earns through various taxes, need to be…

The MGNREGA index

The Hindu The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 (MGNREGA) aims at: Enhancing the livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing 100 days of wage-employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. In the financial year 2015-16, Rs.42,084 crore was spent…

RBI panel for more financial inclusion steps

Deepak Mohanty Panel report on medium-term path on financial inclusion. The recommendations include * Banks have to make special efforts to step up account opening for females. Given the government’s emphasis on the welfare of the girl child, it suggested that the government can consider a welfare scheme—Sukanya Shiksha —that can be jointly funded by…

Splendid decade, human development in India

India’s ranking on Human Development Index (HDI) rose by a notch in 2014 — to 130 th  from 131st a year earlier. With a score of 0.609 on HDI, India stands well below the average score of 0.630 for countries in the medium human development group. But it is marginally above the South Asian countries’…

Growth in fossil fuel emissions slowed in 2015?

A report released today by the Global Carbon Project has found that fossil fuel emissions of carbon dioxide grew by only 0.6% in 2014, breaking with the fast emissions growth of 2-3% per year since early 2000s. This is the first two-year period in a multi-decade record where the global economy shows clear signs of…

14th Finance Commission

A Brief Introduction of Finance Commission Article 280 of the Constitution of India provides for a finance commission as a quasi-judicial body. It is constituted by the President of India every fifth year. It consists of a chairman and four other members to be appointed by the president. It makes recommendations about the following to…