-The Indian Express The FM has rightly spoken of a “focus on integrated demand and supply side management of water at the local level, including source sustainability and management of household wastewater for reuse in Agriculture”. India is not a water-short country. We have merely managed our plentiful water very poorly. What we need, therefore, is a paradigm shift in policy. Could the finance minister (FM) be said to have risen to...

-Livemint.com * FM vows to invest widely in Agriculture infrastructure, but offers little to revive rural income and demand * In terms of new schemes, the budget announced Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana for the fisheries sector and another to boost traditional industries In March 2018, Rakesh Sangwan, 27, a farmer in Haryana’s Charkhi Dadri, stopped watering his tomato plants. The crop slowly withered away and, subsequently, it was mowed down by a...

-Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) brings out a draft version of this publication within 24 hours of the presentation of Union Budget in Parliament every year. The objective of this publication is to facilitate an informed discussion on the Union Budget, particularly around social sectors, Agriculture, employment and vulnerable sections of the population. 2019 being the general election year, our Parliament witnessed two...

-The Indian Express One notable thing was the absence of emphasis on doubling farmers’ real incomes by 2022. Perhaps the reality that this is an uphill task has dawned on the government — it may not achieve even half the target. In her first budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reminded us of the famous quote from M K Gandhi, that the “soul of India lives in villages”. She also said...

-TheWire.in While Nirmala Sitharaman's maiden budget hit all the right political notes, its fiscal math is far fuzzier. The first budget of the Narendra Modi government 2.0 is very high on political rhetoric around empowering the poorest in ‘New India’, but does not have a clear road map of how a fully-funded welfare state will be sustained without a robust revival in growth, based on the twin engines of investment and consumption...