In June last year, a small-scale awareness activity and camp in two blocks of Jharkhand saw hundreds of people showing up at the block office to register their names for pensions and MGNREGA work. On submitting their applications to the block administration, they were communicated the broken refrain of “abhi funds nahin hain” (there is no money available right now).

Finance minister Arun Jaitley was quite generous with promises relating to reformation of the education sector – along with other priority sectors like agriculture and rural economy – while giving his #Budget2018 speech on February 1.

In the union budget for 2018-19, some big announcements have been made especially for the health sector but not supported by corresponding budgetary allocations. While, on the one hand, allocations for some of the key programmes have not shown any increase, on the other, promises have been made for rolling out a big insurance scheme for the poor with no specific budgetary provisions.

Ahead of the Union Budget 2018, there was a lot of anticipation about possible tax relief for direct taxpayers with either a change in the income tax slabs; lowering of the tax rates; or an increase in the income tax exemption limit from the current Rs 2.5 lakhs to Rs 3 lakhs or even to Rs 5 lakhs.

India’s employment statistics have been grim for some time now.

In the face of the brouhaha over the pakoda business, the Union Budget for 2018-19 – the fifth and final full budget of the current government – was looked at with hope by the people of the nation.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government rode to power in 2014, riding on promises such as reducing corruption and generating meaningful employment opportunities for all. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) election manifesto also included assurances on tackling inflation (especially food inflation), reducing inequality and pushing the economy on a higher growth path.

In mid-September, the corporate affairs ministry (MoCA) publicly disclosed a list of 1.06 lakh (1,06,578) disqualified directors with association to ‘shell or on-paper companies’. While the Companies Act 2013 does not define what a shell company really is, shell or on-paper companies are legal entities with no real economic operations typically used for the purposes of tax dodging or to launder funds.

गुजरे साल 8 नवंबर को प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी ने 1,000 रुपए और 500 रुपए के नोट बंद करने का ऐलान कर दिया था. इस फैसले से देश की 86 फीसदी करेंसी अचानक से सिस्टम से बाहर हो गई. इस कदम का मकसद अर्थव्यस्था में मौजूद कालेधन का पता लगाना और इसे खत्म करना था. इसके जरिए देश में भ्रष्टाचार पर लगाम लगाने का भी लक्ष्य रखा गया था.

Exactly a year ago, when the government banned the high-value currency notes declaring that the move will curb the size of black economy in the country, many people hoped that ‘’short term pain would make way for long term gain” as promised. In the days following 8 November, however, as several sectors of the economy and large sections of the population experienced hardships due to the note ban decision, many questions were raised.

Last year, on 8 November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the obsolescence of two high value paper currency, Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, constituting 86 percent of the total cash money in circulation, at a short notice of barely four hours with an objective to unearth and dispose black money and control corruption in the economy.

Revelations like the Panama Papers, Bahamas leaks and the recent Azerbaijani Laundromat scandal have seen countries adopting “global” transparency standards endorsed by the OECD and G20. Asian countries like Indonesia, India, Hong Kong, Singapore and China have agreed to bilaterally share financial information of taxpayers in the beginning of 2018 to combat corporate tax avoidance.

Discussion on the recent tragic deaths of children in the BRD Medical College Hospital at Gorakhpur has, so far, been focussed on the apparent immediate cause — the interruption of oxygen supply to the hospital, linked with continued default in payments to the oxygen supplier.