-PTI   Setting a precedent before his cabinet colleagues, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has officially declared his assets and liabilities worth over Rs 4.83 crore.  Akhilesh, 38, who uploaded details of his assets and liabilities on the official website of the state government, is the first Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister to make a public declaration.  In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections when Akhilesh filed his nomination papers for Kannauj parliamentary seat, he...

The state government has proposed to spend more than Rs7,300 crore on the ailing agriculture sector — in desperate need of assistance after registering negative growth in the previous financial year — and on irrigation. However, this may not translate into direct assistance to farmers. Moreover, this year’s state budget continued to neglect dry land farming – which is of serious concern in view of erratic weather conditions – and has...

The UPA-II has used the Budget to again play politics with hunger. But it has paid no heed to the ticking time bomb of growing social tensions as 58 million Indians living off agriculture slide deeper into poverty. The Economic Survey says more than half the population is dependent on a sector whose share in the economy is shrinking. The urban-rural income divide is therefore steadily widening, a tinder box that...

The second green revolution found a mention in the Union Budget as a big achievement for the government. But, while paddy production went up manifold in eastern India, did it help its producers? In Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s home state of West Bengal, there was agony everywhere in the last few months, as paddy and potatoes were selling cheap and pauperised cultivators were killing themselves. The government was nowhere to procure...

In this year's budget, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has essentially tried to consolidate the gains from the initiatives he had launched during the previous two budgets. Thus, in agriculture there is no new initiative except increasing the target for agricultural credit to Rs.5,75,000 crore during 2012-13. This represents an increase of over Rs.1,00,000 crore from last year. The interest rate of four per cent recommended by the National Commission...