-The Indian Express The budget needed to break new ground, provide a thrust to a slowing economy. This budget lacks innovation. Economics has never been a strong point of the NDA government. Its only two major economic forays, demonetisation and the GST, have both turned out to be pretty disastrous. It was futile, therefore, to expect much from the Union Budget for 2019-20. Even so, one is surprised by the budget’s...
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Tackling farm distress is high priority
-The New Indian Express Narendra Modi’s overwhelming win has pushed the burning issues around agrarian distress on the back burner; but once the victory euphoria dies down, these will be pushing for recognition again. A crash in prices of farm produce and the demand for remunerative prices, and waiver of back-breaking loans are some of the issues staring the new government in the face. The interim budget recognised the distress by...
More »Number crunching helps farmers manage water -Manu Moudgil
-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...
More »Few details, Rs 3.6 lakh crore-question: Will it be a top-up or subsidy tweak? -Aanchal Magazine
-The Indian Express According to the Central Statistics Office, there were 24.95 crore households in India in 2011. If every household in the bottom 20 per cent is eligible for this income, this translates into a total expenditure of about Rs 3.6 lakh crore annually. When Congress president Rahul Gandhi announced that his party, if voted to power, would offer a minimum income of Rs 72,000 a year for the poorest 20...
More »Is the Modi Government Truly Committed to Rural Development? -Bharat Dogra
-TheWire.in Declining budget allocation and actual expenditure on schemes geared towards agriculture, sanitation and housing have brought the government's seriousness to the cause of rural welfare under suspicion. Direct benefit transfer has dominated the majority of the discussion on the Interim Budget in the context of agriculture. However, in order to properly understand the seriousness of the government to the cause of farmers and related issues of rural development, we should also...
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