-Livemint.com While Budget 2018’s agriculture focus may not revive the rural economy, whether it fetches any votes for the Narendra Modi govt will only be known next year Since this was the last full budget of the Narendra Modi-led government before the general elections next year, its contours were more or less known to everybody. The budget in that sense did not surprise. Given the tight fiscal situation, it was expected that...

-TheWire.in The finance minister has made a big announcement on minimum support price, but he should make it clear whether all he is promising is to take the prices back to the UPA-II levels. The government has done it again. Like last year, there has been much hype about a pro-farmer Budget, but in actuality it rests on misleading claims which don’t address the farming crisis. Last year, the agriculture credit target...

-The Indian Express There are grand promises. But the actual increases in budgetary outlays are shockingly low. This government is especially good at optics, at managing public perceptions to persuade people that it is working for them, rather than doing so. So it is no surprise that Arun Jaitley’s pre-election budget speech went on about how much his government cares for the people, the poor, for farmers, for women, for people...

According to the document entitled Green Paper on Farmers, Farming & Rural Economy 2018: 4 Years - 4 Budgets: What Has This Central Government Delivered?, which has been prepared by Jai Kishan Andolan, Swaraj India, ASHA and Rythu Swarajya Vedika (published on 30 January, 2018): Far from giving farmers and farming ‘the highest priority’ during a period when they most needed the governmental support, the present NDA government has tried to...

-Livemint.com Union Budget 2018 may be able to offer sops for big farmers but it would not be able to deal with the structural challenges facing India’s rural economy The results of the Gujarat elections, in which the opposition Congress outperformed the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in rural constituencies, and the growing number of farmer agitations in the country have focused attention on rural India ahead of this year’s budget. But...