-The Financial Express Turning agriculture around should be the top priority of government in the new year. India became the world’s fastest-growing economy in 2015. Indian agriculture, however, fared much worse. Agriculture grew only by 0.2% in FY15. Two consecutive years of drought, unseasonal rains in rabi season and falling food prices in global markets have driven farmers to desperation. Turning agriculture around should be the top priority of government in the...

Representatives of around 20 civil society organizations and NGOs met the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley as part of pre-budget consultation on social sector on 12 January, 2016. Immediately after the pre-budget consultation, a press conference was held by some of these organizations to convey the media persons what demands/ suggestions were made.   Subrat Das, Executive Director of Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA, http://www.cbgaindia.org/) informed us that during...

-The Hindu For growth to go forward, it must be environmentally and socially concordant. The launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and agreements in Paris finally signalled the realisation that we can no longer achieve our economic ambitions by endangering the environment and society. But even as countries agreed on the need to nurture sustainability, it has come under fire from the mistaken notion that doing so will slow the pace...

-Business Standard Govt should revamp agricultural marketing to increase farmers' earnings and amend land-leasing laws Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has met farm sector representatives for pre-Budget consultations at a time Indian agriculture is passing through a bad patch - especially because of two years of consecutive drought. Predictably, therefore, most participants pitched for more credit on soft terms, higher minimum support prices (MSP) for crops and the expansion of irrigation facilities to...

-The Hindu Among other things, the government must work towards giving life to the National Health Policy Even as millions of Indians wish each other health, happiness and hope in the new year, they also await news on the new National Health Policy which will become the GPS in our journey towards better health. The draft policy, which was framed by the Union Health Ministry, was placed for public comment just over...