A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Saturday, August 1, 2015
After uproar, India ups budget for some social welfare sectors
A passenger sleeps along with her children at a railway station on a hot summer day in Allahabad, May 26, 2015.-REUTERS/JITENDRA PRAKASH/FILES
The government on Friday sought parliamentary approval to raise federal
spending on social welfare, months after opposition lawmakers and Prime
Minister Narendra Modi's own officials slammed his cuts in spending.
Modi's finance ministry plans to raise the budget for women and child
welfare, as well as sanitation programmes, by around 40 percent, a
government document tabled in parliament showed.
Modi in February redirected funds from social programmes towards
infrastructure, asking states to fill the gap. He hoped this would
fasten the pace of economic growth, but critics said it could endanger
the country's most vulnerable. (reut.rs/1HrmVfy)
The changes, once approved, will come as a relief for Modi's women and
child welfare minister, Maneka Gandhi, who had protested after her
ministry's budget was more than halved to $1.62 billion. The new
proposal put her budget at $2.24 billion.
The bulk of additional funds will go to a child welfare scheme that
provides free food to 85 million children. Gandhi had warned the finance
minister of political fallout if the focus on malnutrition was
reduced.(reut.rs/1Kh3aYK)
The government also proposed to increase the budget for the drinking water and sanitation sector by 43 percent to $1.39 billion.
Health officials had also complained about a shortage of funds in the
sector. The main health department will see its budget rise by 2
percent, while the budget to fight HIV/AIDS will see a nominal increase
of $1,500. The HIV prevention programme has been suffering funding
shortages in several states.
While unveiling the new policy shakeup in February, the government said
lower federal welfare spending would be compensated for by giving state
governments a larger allocation of tax revenues. But many poorer states
complained, saying they were facing net losses under the new policy.
Modi's government had denied social budgets were being squeezed, saying
India was going through a reset of the fiscal architecture by providing
states more money.
Naresh Saxena, an adviser to the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF), welcomed the move but called for more focus on social sectors.
"It is a sign that the central government has to take on the majority of
the burden for helping the most disadvantaged groups," Saxena said.
"Still, social spending is too low."
(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Nick Macfie)