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Clear Cut Magazine

Promises on Paper: How Mid-Year Budget Cuts Are Quietly Gutting India’s Women and Child Welfare Schemes

India’s Budget speech is a carefully choreographed event. Numbers go up, schemes get named, and ministers applaud. But a quieter story plays out months later, in documents called Revised Estimates. This is where the real spending decisions happen. In 2025-26, two of India’s most critical welfare schemes for women and children were slashed significantly at…

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REIMAGINING DEVELOPMENT THROUGH THE SKILL LIVELIHOOD LABOUR NEXUS

India’s Path to Inclusive Growth From Demographic Dividend to Economic Participation India stands at a defining moment in its development trajectory. It’s growth story is often framed through the lens of its demographic dividend. With one of the world’s youngest populations, the country’s demographic dividend offers immense potential. Yet, the real test lies not in…

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India’s $180 Billion Social Funding Crisis: Can Private Philanthropy Rise to the Challenge?

India faces a $180 billion social sector funding gap, and the India Philanthropy Report 2026 warns that private philanthropy must grow by over 25% annually to help meet the country’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The report highlights the key roles of family wealth, CSR, and the Indian diaspora in closing the widening development funding deficit….

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A Guarantee Under Strain – Do Budget Numbers Match India’s Livelihood Needs?

The Union Budget has placed employment and livelihoods at the centre of the government’s long-term vision under what it calls the “Viksit Bharat Guarantee”. The Budget promises to strengthen rural jobs, self-employment, and basic services so that economic growth translates into everyday security for ordinary households. Two major pillars of this promise are VB–G Ram–G…

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Viksit Bharat in a Warming World: What Budget 2026 Must Get Right

India’s climate and energy discourse has entered a more mature phase, marked by a shifting intent from binding targets to inculcating a system readiness approach and embedding it into policy design. The outlining of India’s climate action strategies in the Economic Survey 2025-26 is notable because it repositions climate change as a structural economic variable…

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Indian Parliament introducing the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill 2025

India Pushes Big Reform with Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025

A shift looms over India’s college landscape. Mid-December brought the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill into Parliament’s lower house, pushed forward by the national Education Minister. This proposal targets the core structure behind campus leadership nationwide A fresh attempt arrives where problems once stayed too long. Across India, millions of students fill classrooms every day….

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