For the fifth year in a row, horticulture production is expected to surpass foodgrain production. However, as compared to the crop years 2014-15 and 2015-16, when drought was faced by most Indian states, horticulture production this year is predicted to rise by a meagre amount.   As compared to 2014-15 and 2015-16, horticulture production this year is expected to rise by 2.2 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively. However, as compared to...

-NDTV The "highest ever allocation" to NREGA (which also led to it trending on Twitter)  in the Union Budget has provided a useful opportunity to raise some pressing issues related to the implementation of the scheme. It is natural, and welcome, that the government turn to NREGA to provide much-needed relief to those whose already precarious lives have been disrupted by demonetization, a man-made economic disaster. Widespread reports of job losses...

As opposed to what has been said officially about the positive impact of demonetisation on rabi sowing, acreage actually declined in 2016-17 as compared to a normal year. Let us see why this has been so. On New Year’s Eve, Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing the nation post-demonetisation, among other things, said: “...Friends in the last few weeks, an impression was sought to be created that the agriculture sector...

-Scroll.in India’s first chief statistician, Pronab Sen, is now country director of the International Growth Centre, which seeks to build effective growth facilities through engagement between policymakers and researchers. In this interview to Scroll.in, he speaks on the 50 days of demonetisation, its failings, its severe impact on the poor, the loss of credibility of the Reserve Bank of India, the push to make India a cashless or less-cash economy, and...

-Frontline.in In the latest Global Hunger Index, India is bracketed in the category of countries where hunger levels are “serious”. But the policy responses on hunger and malnutrition in the country have been inadequate and faulty. In the second week of October, a few media reports in India highlighted significant data pertaining to global hunger. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) had released its Global Hunger Index (GHI), rating 118...