Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
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 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
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deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 73
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Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
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Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
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Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
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Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
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 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
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deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 74
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Code Context
            if (Configure::read('debug')) {

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		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. 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	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture,...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. 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	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont&#039;,
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	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;The Financial Times, 28 February, 2011, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1FMTM0w00&#039;,
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$metaDesc = &#039;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture,...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;
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                <strong>Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont</strong></h1>
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                <div style="text-align: justify">Pranab Mukherjee, India&rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &ldquo;focus&rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Please respect FT.com's ts&amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &quot;It's a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&quot;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&quot;pro-growth&quot; but holding no bold outcomes.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&rsquo;s soil.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &ldquo;the kingpin of India&rsquo;s price structure&rdquo; &ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&rsquo;s top priorities.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &ldquo;major productivity gains&rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&quot;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &ldquo;strangled&rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&rdquo;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&rsquo;s minimum support price regime.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;I tell farmers, don&rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><em><br /></em></div><div style="text-align: justify"><em>Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi</em></div>               </font>
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		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. 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	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;English&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
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	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 6281,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;Agriculture&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture,...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;
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                <strong>Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont</strong></h1>
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                <div style="text-align: justify">Pranab Mukherjee, India&rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &ldquo;focus&rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Please respect FT.com's ts&amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &quot;It's a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&quot;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&quot;pro-growth&quot; but holding no bold outcomes.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&rsquo;s soil.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &ldquo;the kingpin of India&rsquo;s price structure&rdquo; &ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&rsquo;s top priorities.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &ldquo;major productivity gains&rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&quot;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &ldquo;strangled&rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&rdquo;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&rsquo;s minimum support price regime.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;I tell farmers, don&rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><em><br /></em></div><div style="text-align: justify"><em>Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi</em></div>               </font>
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		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont&#039;,
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	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture,...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 6281,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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$metaDesc = &#039;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture,...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Pranab Mukherjee, India&amp;rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &amp;ldquo;focus&amp;rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Please respect FT.com&#039;s ts&amp;amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp;amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &amp;quot;It&#039;s a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&amp;quot;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&amp;quot;pro-growth&amp;quot; but holding no bold outcomes.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&amp;rsquo;s soil.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&amp;rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &amp;ldquo;the kingpin of India&amp;rsquo;s price structure&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&amp;rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&amp;rsquo;s top priorities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &amp;ldquo;major productivity gains&amp;rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&amp;quot;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &amp;ldquo;strangled&amp;rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&amp;rsquo;s minimum support price regime.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;I tell farmers, don&amp;rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;He said: &amp;ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;
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                <strong>Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont</strong></h1>
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                <div style="text-align: justify">Pranab Mukherjee, India&rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &ldquo;focus&rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Please respect FT.com's ts&amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &quot;It's a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&quot;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&quot;pro-growth&quot; but holding no bold outcomes.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&rsquo;s soil.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &ldquo;the kingpin of India&rsquo;s price structure&rdquo; &ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&rsquo;s top priorities.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &ldquo;major productivity gains&rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&quot;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &ldquo;strangled&rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&rdquo;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&rsquo;s minimum support price regime.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;I tell farmers, don&rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><em><br /></em></div><div style="text-align: justify"><em>Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi</em></div>               </font>
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		'title' => 'Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont',
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		'description' => '<div style="text-align: justify">Pranab Mukherjee, India&rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &ldquo;focus&rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Please respect FT.com's ts&amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &quot;It's a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&quot;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&quot;pro-growth&quot; but holding no bold outcomes.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&rsquo;s soil.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &ldquo;the kingpin of India&rsquo;s price structure&rdquo; &ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&rsquo;s top priorities.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &ldquo;major productivity gains&rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&quot;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &ldquo;strangled&rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&rdquo;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&rsquo;s minimum support price regime.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;I tell farmers, don&rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><em><br /></em></div><div style="text-align: justify"><em>Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi</em></div>',
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	'metaTitle' => 'LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont',
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	'metaDesc' => 'Pranab Mukherjee, India&rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &ldquo;focus&rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture,...',
	'disp' => '<div style="text-align: justify">Pranab Mukherjee, India&rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &ldquo;focus&rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Please respect FT.com's ts&amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &quot;It's a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&quot;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&quot;pro-growth&quot; but holding no bold outcomes.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&rsquo;s soil.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &ldquo;the kingpin of India&rsquo;s price structure&rdquo; &ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&rsquo;s top priorities.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &ldquo;major productivity gains&rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&quot;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &ldquo;strangled&rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&rdquo;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&rsquo;s minimum support price regime.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;I tell farmers, don&rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><em><br /></em></div><div style="text-align: justify"><em>Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi</em></div>',
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	'id' => (int) 6281,
	'title' => 'Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont',
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	'description' => '<div style="text-align: justify">Pranab Mukherjee, India&rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &ldquo;focus&rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Please respect FT.com's ts&amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &quot;It's a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&quot;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&quot;pro-growth&quot; but holding no bold outcomes.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&rsquo;s soil.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &ldquo;the kingpin of India&rsquo;s price structure&rdquo; &ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&rsquo;s top priorities.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &ldquo;major productivity gains&rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&quot;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &ldquo;strangled&rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&rdquo;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&rsquo;s minimum support price regime.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;I tell farmers, don&rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><em><br /></em></div><div style="text-align: justify"><em>Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi</em></div>',
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$metaTitle = 'LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont'
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$metaDesc = 'Pranab Mukherjee, India&rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &ldquo;focus&rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture,...'
$disp = '<div style="text-align: justify">Pranab Mukherjee, India&rsquo;s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his &ldquo;focus&rdquo; in the coming fiscal year.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Please respect FT.com's ts&amp;cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; &amp; redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: &quot;It's a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas.&quot;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as&quot;pro-growth&quot; but holding no bold outcomes.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation&rsquo;s soil.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India&rsquo;s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls &ldquo;the kingpin of India&rsquo;s price structure&rdquo; &ndash; high agricultural commodity prices.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh&rsquo;s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi&rsquo;s top priorities.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for &ldquo;major productivity gains&rdquo; in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity&quot;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is &ldquo;strangled&rdquo; by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],&rdquo;.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government&rsquo;s minimum support price regime.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;I tell farmers, don&rsquo;t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">He said: &ldquo;The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">&ldquo;But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.&rdquo;</div><div style="text-align: justify"><em><br /></em></div><div style="text-align: justify"><em>Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi</em></div>'
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Agriculture reform key to India budget by James Lamont

Pranab Mukherjee, India’s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his “focus” in the coming fiscal year. A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high profile corruption scandals. Yet its timidity was met with widespread criticism for failing to push forward a reform agenda. Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b16797ee-4309-11e0-aef2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FQBqaUrs Lord Desai, the economist and UK Labour peer, said: "It's a disappointing budget. The government has lost direction. All Pranab Mukherjee is doing is treading water. “The government has decided to abandon the urban middle class and go to the rural areas." Rajiv Kumar, the director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, described the budget as"pro-growth" but holding no bold outcomes. The 74-year-old finance minister assured parliament that India would hit 9 per cent growth next year, and cut its fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent. He warned that India needed to invest far more in agriculture to boost productivity and enlarge storage facilities to help reduce the spiralling prices of fruit and vegetables. He announced a credit flow target of Rs4,750bn ($105bn) to the agriculture sector and offered a 3 per cent interest subsidy to farmers. The finance minister stressed the need to achieve balanced nutrition in a country where severe malnutrition afflicts a large number of people, and to combat the degradation of the nation’s soil. An immediate reduction in food prices is key to Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, in meeting a target of bringing inflation down to 7 per cent or below by the end of next month. Inflation was 8.2 per cent in January, while food prices were rising 11 per cent. Mr Singh will be hoping that the measures announced on Monday will help knock down what he calls “the kingpin of India’s price structure” – high agricultural commodity prices. Rising food prices in a country where an estimated 60 per cent of the 1.2bn population live off the land are one of Mr Singh’s worst problems of his second term in office. His government has been beset by price bubbles in such crops as onions and sugar that have hurt urban and rural populations. Confronting a structural shift in the agricultural economy, where supply shortages, rising costs and market distortions have created unpopular price pressures, is one of New Delhi’s top priorities. Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, called at the weekend for “major productivity gains” in a second Green Revolution to advance gains made as far back as the 1960s with more modern farming methods. He said: “Since rural incomes are going up, people are eating better by shifting from cereal to protein and it is leading to food scarcity". Farm reforms are long overdue, according to agriculture experts who claim the sector has been badly neglected. Ashok Gulati, the Asia director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said agriculture is “strangled” by government controls, suspension of futures markets and export bans. He said: “Agriculture is crying for a clean sweep of market reforms as was done for industry [20 years ago],”. Performance in the farm sector varies considerably across India. Some farmers have benefited from market prices and crop diversification, while others suffer hardship under the government’s minimum support price regime. E Vadivel, former dean of the horticulture department at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, said returns to Indian farmers were higher for fruits and vegetables over staple crops like rice and wheat. He said: “I tell farmers, don’t go for paddy, pulses or oilseeds. Abandon these crops. They are all linked to the public distribution system, and the government will never allow the price to rise.” Ranjit Singh Ghuman, head of economics at Punjabi University in Patiala, said the government had sleepwalked into an agrarian crisis where incomes were declining and rural people increasingly searching for other avenues of work. He said: “The view was that the Green Revolution would take care of everything. There was no focus on the quality of education and skills to make the youth employable in non-farm sectors. “But now the opportunity in farming is shrinking.” Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in New Delhi