-The Indian Express While the over 3% agriculture Growth in the first quarter factored in strong Rabi procurement, with high-price realisations getting reflected in the output numbers, fresh data from mandis indicate a slide in the prices of the intercrop produce — horticulture, milk and poultry etc. The rural sector may have held out the only sliver of hope amid the broader collapse in the first-quarter GDP numbers but there are fresh...

-National Herald If the disaster that economy is heading towards is to be avoided, there has to be a massive injection of demand by govt both through transfers and through direct spending on goods and services The GDP Growth in the first quarter (April-June) of 2020 over the first quarter of the previous year has been minus 24 per cent according to preliminary official estimates. But most knowledgeable people believe that even...

-Livemint.com Rural India was battling economic difficulties even before the pandemic. The pandemic-induced lockdown increased hardships even further. The historic contraction in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) figure for the June-ended quarter has raised several questions on what the future holds, and what that contraction has meant for ordinary people. Macro-economic statistics can often fail to capture the diverse realities of a country as large as India, and hence it is useful...

-Centre for Science and Environment * Niti Aayog vice chairperson Rajiv Kumar releases the report, which provides the real picture of organic farming in India: only 2 per cent of India’s net sown area organically farmed, and a mere 1.3 per cent of farmers registered to do organic farming * Organic and natural farming must be upscaled to make Indian agriculture sustainable, says the report * Needs to be turned into a mass...

-The Indian Express The contraction seen in first-quarter GDP data is severe, but not unexpected. What should be done — or not done – at the level of govt policy so that the economy gets a chance to rebound as quickly as possible? * How should one read the first-quarter GDP data and the contraction by 23.9%? What signal does it offer for the future? And does it give any idea of...