-Hindustan Times Farmers have experienced a growing mismatch between their production efforts and incomes under the Narendra Modi government. The coming union budget will have to find a balance between two contradictory FDs: farm-distress and fiscal discipline. The choice is not going to be an easy one. Ignoring farm-distress in the last full-fledged budget before Elections could be politically suicidal. Meanwhile, there are at least two things that could make the government slip...
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Will FM Arun Jaitley give a rural touch to Budget 2018 or will he hold on to fiscal prudence? -Shantanu Nandan Sharma
-The Economic Times After Gujarat returned the ruling BJP with a slim margin, the chorus of the establishment was "jo jeeta wohi sikandar" (He who wins is the king). It seemed apt, considering that the party retained Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state, bunking anti-incumbency of 22 years. But opposition wags responded with "jo sikha wohi sikandar", he who learns will be king, in 2019, in the next general Elections. Rural Gujarat,...
More »Pranab Bardhan, professor of graduate school in the department of economics at the University of California (Berkeley), interviewed by Devadeep Purohit (The Telegraph)
-The Telegraph The Left in Bengal had often criticised him whenever he red-flagged excessive local tyranny, and spoke about the industrial decline in Bengal. The incumbent ruling party may make tall claims about changes in Bengal since the Trinamul government came to power but he has been candid enough to suggest that he hasn't seen much change either in industrial expansion or in investment in infrastructure. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has...
More »Global crash, local glut hit Gujarat milk market -Gopal B Kateshiya & Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express Dairy farmers in Gujarat, till recently, were relatively insulated from the crisis faced by those growing cotton, groundnut or potatoes. Rajkot/ New Delhi: AFTER COTTON and groundnut, it’s milk that is turning sour for Gujarat’s farmers. A crash in global skimmed milk powder (SMP) rates, coupled with surging procurement by dairy unions affiliated to the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), has led to an unprecedented glut. In the last...
More »Assuring Higher Farmer Income: Centre Passing the Buck to States Yet Again -Kavitha Kuruganti
-TheWire.in The proposed Market Assurance Scheme should not leave states to fend for themselves when it comes to price support for farmers, especially as the agrarian crisis is one that is caused mainly by central policies. The Budget season, that too in the last full year before the 2019 general Elections, brings the debate back to agriculture in the country. Apart from several farmers’ struggles across the country, including the unprecedented unified...
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