The Young Chronicle: For 4th Graders 24th May, 2015 | Page 5

Page 5      Taxation: Brought company taxation levels to meet global standards, encouraging companies to open shop in India. Transparency: The government made large scale initiatives like Coal auctions, transparent. It also ensured that the funds gathered from the auctions were unanimously divided amongst states. If you remember, the CoalGate scam that had got even our ex-prime minister under the scanner, you’d know the importance of transparency in the Coal auction business. Overall, the level of corruption has reduced. Infrastructure and Development: with the new government kicking in, we have found more and more infrastructure and development projects have come underway. Smart cities have been sanctioned, public investment in agriculture and irrigation has increased. Land Reform Bill: Though the bill has been under the scanner for subjective reasons, at least the government is taking logical steps to ensure that that 90% of the population doesn’t engage in a sector that now only contributes 13% (as of 2012-13) to the Economy (Gross Domestic Product) of the country. Instead, they plan to organise and mechanise the agricultural sector to reduce the dependence on monsoons and yield more per land. That said, with a high disguised unemployment rate within the agriculture sector, it is important that people slowly move to other sectors which contribute more to the growing economy. This can happen only if people are equipped with education and skill development, which the government is looking at improving in any case. Finance and Rail Budgets: The New budgets seem promising with funds allocated for skill development, more AIIMS and IITs and educational institutions coming up, along with infrastructure and development. We are hoping for more progress in the coming year. Stay Tuned for the next edition of the TYC, to know about the areas where the Modi government has underperformed.