-The Indian Express Because this time, it’s only rural producers, not urban consumers, who are feeling the heat This time’s drought has been a most unusual one. Even with three consecutive bad crops (kharif 2014, rabi 2015, and kharif 2015) and a fourth not-so-great one (thankfully, there’s been no big damage from the unseasonal rain and hail unlike in March 2015), annual consumer food price inflation is only 5.3 per cent. In the...

-The Asian Age As one listened to finance minister Arun Jaitley deliver his third Budget speech, the overwhelming impression that was sought to be created was along anticipated lines. Here was a government whose heart was bleeding for the hapless farmer toiling in the fields, the agriculturist whose livelihood has been all but destroyed by two successive monsoon failures. Here was an administration whose representatives were concerned about the “curse of...

-The Hindu The belt-tightening requires the poor to pay increased indirect taxes while the cushion of the social sector is consistently taken away from them. There is always a hype around a Union Budget but this time around, the expectations were running sky-high in terms of it being the make-or-break Budget for the Narendra Modi-led government since it happens to be in the middle of his five-year term. I must say at...

-Business Standard Deflation in manufacturing continues, food inflation picks up Wholesale price index (WPI)-based deflation persisted for a 14th straight month in December, the index dropping 0.7 per cent as compared to one of almost two per cent in November. However, food inflation rose to 8.17 per cent, the steepest in 17 months, from 5.2 per cent. This was on more expensive vegetable and non-vegetarian items, prompting economists to say the Reserve Bank...

-The Hindu Business Line Land should not be viewed as the only factor of productivity. And, managing food prices calls for better market intelligence The Centre’s emphasis on manufacturing, manifested in initiatives such as ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill India’ have a downside: relative indifference to agriculture. Some of this is already visible in terms of rural distress and food price inflation. This can prove costly to the economy, reminiscent of the...