-TheWire.in The Swaminathan Commission was clear in its recommendations, and the rationale offered by the NITI Aayog to rule out the use of comprehensive cost is dubious at best. Finance minister Arun Jaitley had announced in Budget 2018-19 that his “government has decided to keep MSP [minimum support price] for the all unannounced crops of kharif at least at one and half times of their production cost”. This announcement set off a flurry...
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Union Budget 2018-19: An exercise in jugglery of numbers, say civil society groups
-Press Release by National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) New Delhi: Calling this year’s union budget ‘just an exercise in manipulation of numbers,’ veteran activist Medha Patkar asked, “When the major decisions like the demonetisation and GST are taken between two budgets then what’s the relevance of the Budget?,” at a panel discussion on the analysis of this year’s union budget with a special focus on Handloom, Fisheries, Dalits, Adivasis, Forest,...
More »Where's the money, Mr Jaitley? -Jayati Ghosh
-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...
More »Taking their cue from economic survey, activists attack govt for failing to address farm concerns -Vishwa Mohan
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Flagging poor returns to farmers due to low minimum support price (MSP) and inadequate market interventions, farm activists on Tuesday demanded setting up a permanent statutory commission on farmers' income and asked the government to take measures to ensure remunerative prices to cultivators and make the farming climate resilient. Pointing at the economic survey which found only a slight increase in real agriculture income in the...
More »'NDA govt the most anti-farmer in India's history'
-The Hindu Business Line ‘Green paper’ says Centre has not helped farmers in crisis; net returns at MSP in last four years much lower than under UPA-II New Delhi: Farmer groups on Tuesday termed the incumbent National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre the most anti-farmer in the history of independent India and said its budgetary announcements were just grandstanding, with little action or money to back them. Bringing out what they...
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