-Livemint.com A growth-first approach may work in the short-term, but India needs to prioritize sustainability simultaneously The Union Budget 2016-17, seeking to “transform India”, has been hailed for its emphasis on agricultural growth and sustainability. Symbolically, the finance minister put “agriculture and farmers’ welfare” first in his nine-point agenda. The words “agriculture” and “farmer” found 20 and 32 mentions, respectively, in the budget speech, the highest in the last decade. On the...

-The Asian Age The Economic Survey of 2015-2016 is a lovely document which goes into great detail on what is wrong with India on the economic front and offers good workable solutions to solve these problems. One of the points that the survey makes is regarding Indian agriculture becoming cereal-centric. The reason for this lies in the fact that the government procures rice and wheat from farmers at the minimum support price...

-TheWire.in This year’s Union Budget markets itself as a pro-poor and pro-farmer budget. To take a closer and harder look at this, The Wire spoke to Ashok Gulati, chair professor for agriculture at ICRIER. Gulati tells The Wire why this budget is insignificant for reducing farmers’ distress, in spite of all the talk. Edited excerpts from the interview follow: * How much is the actual increase in the total allocation to agriculture...

-The Economic Times PUNE: Farmer representatives think the measures suggested in budget are not enough to stop farmers suicides as what the farmers want is guaranteed income. "This budget is an initiation of good measures for farming sector. However, these measures are not sufficient for stopping farmer suicides. What the farmers want is guaranteed income for their produce," said Jayapal Reddy, secretary, Confederation of Kisan Organisations. The finance minister announced to double...

In the age of social media, various sections of the Indian polity and civil society have reacted publicly in diverse voices, following the presentation of the Union Budget 2016-17 by Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley. An assessment of the Union Budget 2016-17 has been done in the following paragraphs by the Inclusive Media for Change team, based on a number of media reports, Government documents (including the Budget documents), and reports...