-Financial Express For sustainable growth, Rural India’s squeezing purchasing power needs immediate attention New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) unanimous call for a 25-basis-point rate hike after four years was primarily driven by the strengthening core inflation as well as the rising household inflationary expectations. Since the April Monetary Policy Committee meeting, there have been some significant macro developments, mainly on four counts. First, the global crude oil prices have risen...

-Hindustan Times Profitability takes a hit as real MSPs have not risen over the years New Delhi: Most commentary around rural anger in India has been focused on either the sector’s growth performance or government spending on agriculture. Such analysis is likely to present an incomplete picture at best. Government spending on agriculture is a small fraction of the total agricultural economic output. In 2017-18, the ministry of agriculture’s spending was less...

-The Hindu Conflicts, climate change are main hurdles in meeting development goals The number of hungry people in the world has risen for the first time in more than a decade, according to a United Nations report released on Wednesday. There are now approximately 38 million more undernourished people in the world, rising from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016, the year for which the latest statistics are available. According to...

-Livemint.com In the last three years, wages of agricultural labourers have increased only by 0.5% per year while those of non-agricultural workers have declined by 0.25% per year, the worst so far in 30 years The agrarian economy continues to be plagued by falling output prices, declining incomes and increased variation in agricultural production pointing to a situation of uncertainty and vulnerability among most rural residents. This has created an unprecedented demand...

-Financial Express Among the six states studied by Icrier, Gujarat spends the most on agriculture R&E (0.59%), followed by Bihar (0.50%), Punjab (0.41%), Odisha (0.25%), Uttar Pradesh (0.17%) and Madhya Pradesh (0.24%). The government’s expenditure on agricultural research and extension education services is not only very low but also heavily skewed in favour of crops, even as the dairy sector has a rapidly increasing share in the gross value of output...