Amidst uncertainty over India's performance in terms of agricultural production and livelihood security of rural population, the Union Budget of 2016-17 will be presented by Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley on 29 February. Given the extent of drought in more than 10 states of India during 2015-16, it is expected that the NDA Government will allocate more resources for rejuvenating the rural sector. Since the country has seen two years of...

-TheHansIndia.com The ongoing drought is fuelling distress migration from districts in Telangana, a trend that was witnessed in the early 2000s. The severe drought conditions for the second consecutive year have led to crop failure, mounting debts, chronic unemployment and failure of the NREGA scheme, especially in the districts of Mahbubnagar, Medak, and Adilabad, forcing large-scale exodus of farmers and others.   The fruits of a people’s movement and the world’s largest anti-poverty...

-Hindustan Times The government’s crop insurance scheme designed to protect 700 million farmers from natural disasters appears to have been overshadowed by Maharashtra’s BJP parliamentarian Gopal Shetty’s alleged description of farmer suicides as a ‘fashion’ and a ‘trend’. Critics have often described the government, which rode to a landslide poll victory in 2014 promising to usher in ‘achhe din’, as ‘pro-corporate’ at the cost of ignoring the farmers. The Narendra Modi-led NDA...

-The Times of India PATIALA: The figure of Rs 70,000 crore cropped up frequently in 2015. This was the total amount that mutual fund firms invested in equity markets. This was also the amount that India offered to pay Russia to acquire anti-ballistic missile systems in what is considered the biggest defence deal between the two countries. Also, the Union finance minister proposed an increase in investment in infrastructure by Rs...

-Down to Earth The debt in rural households is higher, even though their total assets are lesser than urban households   A new survey by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) shows that rural households have higher debts than their urban counterparts. At the same time, an urban household owns more than double the asset than that of a rural household. A rural household, on an average, owned assets of Rs 10...