-Livemint.com The budget to be presented on 1 February may be the last full budget of the Narendra Modi government unless it uses the opportunity to revive the economy The budget to be presented on 1 February will be the last full budget of this government. The budget in 2019 will only be a vote-on-account. But whether this will be the last full budget of the Narendra Modi government will depend on...

-The Indian Express The crisis in the crop’s prices in two of the four years of the Modi government illustrate that farmers no longer matter to it. Farmers are habitually great raconteurs. My grandfather would often narrate an episode, when he encountered a farmer sitting by a heap of potatoes in the middle of the night. On investigating what compelled the farmer to guard potatoes when there were no buyers, he was...

-Business Standard In the country, wheat, the main rabi foodgrain, has been sown on 29.55 million hectares, almost 1.44 mn ha less than last year Drought in parts of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, and a shift in area towards more lucrative gram, has pulled down wheat and mustard acreage in the current rabi season. This, with low farm-gate prices for a second year, has aggravated distress in rural areas. Water levels in...

-Livemint.com In Gujarat elections, BJP won 23 seats in cotton cultivation areas, while the Congress took 30 The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra is worried about the electoral reversals the party suffered in rural Gujarat, especially the cotton-growing parts. Results of the Gujarat assembly elections announced on Monday showed the Congress made significant gains in the Saurashtra-Kutch region and north Gujarat where cotton and groundnut are the main cash crops. In...

-The Hindu Business Line Surpasses last year’s area for the first time New Delhi: The area under cultivation in the current rabi season for the first time this week surpassed that of corresponding period last year, according to the data released by the Agriculture Ministry on Friday. The total acreage under the rabi this year stood at 514.22 lakh hectares (lh), a marginal 1 per cent rise from 509.12 lh during the same...