The Goods and Services Tax (GST) has generated almost ₹3.4 lakh crore in revenue between October and November.
October's collections were the second-highest, and November's were the third-highest. Both months saw accelerated revenue growth after a slowing trend that hit a 27-month low in September.
The government should focus on making the GST a genuinely good and simple tax, given its strong revenues from compliance and tax enforcement. The GST Council must operate the cleared appellate tribunals as soon as possible.
First, The Congress needs to strengthen its base in three heartland states(MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan) through a cohesive ideological campaign on constitutional values and electoral promises, aiming to retain voters who supported the party in the previous election.(It shouldn’t be only electoral promises.)
Second, the Congress and other Opposition parties in the INDIA formation should finalize their seat sharing arrangements without further delay and formulate a common programme.
Third, serious efforts must be made to further broaden the INDIA coalition by identifying and reaching out to more potential allies.
First, The Congress needs to strengthen its base in three heartland states(MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan) through a cohesive ideological campaign on constitutional values and electoral promises, aiming to retain voters who supported the party in the previous election.(It shouldn’t be only electoral promises.)
Second, the Congress and other Opposition parties in the INDIA formation should finalize their seat sharing arrangements without further delay and formulate a common programme.
Third, serious efforts must be made to further broaden the INDIA coalition by identifying and reaching out to more potential allies.
Multi dimensional Poverty Index - The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has created a comprehensive metric for gauging human development, which involves uniform weighting of three key components: health, education, and standard of living, along with their sub-indices.The UNDP and NITI Aayog have developed a National Multidimensional Poverty Index.
Astonishingly, the MPI 2023 estimates show a near-halving of India’s national MPI value and a decline from 24.85% to 14.96% between 2015-16 and 2019-21. This reduction of 9.89 percentage points implies that about 135.5 million people have exited poverty between 2015-16 and 2019-21. (COVID-19 pandemic period 2020-21. ) - Indeed, these are misleading and ill-informed
The estimation of a certain study relies on the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 4 and 5, which are not detailed enough. NFHS 5's estimate of open defecation contradicted an exaggerated official claim of its complete elimination, leading to its suspension. Despite this, NITI Aayog and UNDP used it.
Further doubts -The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21 caused millions to lose their livelihoods and thousands to die due to a lack of access to medical care. The Indian economy has been struggling to recover from the resulting economic shock.
NOTE- Alarmingly high rate of criminalisation of Politics — 24% of the winners in the Lok Sabha election in 2004 had a criminal background; it rose to 30% in the 2009 general election, 34% in the 2014 election, and 43% in the 2019 election.
A review of MPI estimates suggests that poverty reduction in India between 2015 and 2019-21 was considerably lower than the official estimate, with poverty rising in Uttar Pradesh by over seven percentage points. The MPI fell in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh among the states that went to the elections in November. The MPI in Madhya Pradesh fell by around eight percentage points.
NOTE: Mind it - A fall in MPI value indicates development/poverty reduction etc.
