-The Hindu Arun Jaitley has steered clear of populist giveaways in the run-up to Assembly elections Some said it was a ‘make or break’ Budget, one that would use the potential gains from demonetisation to give a decisive push to economic growth. Others said it would be a populist Budget aimed at the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere. It has turned out to be neither. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has presented...

-The Indian Express Considering all these aspects, farmers had higher expectation that Budget 2017-18 would give them the best deal. However, this expectation was not met. It is now widely recognised and reported that farmers in India are facing a distressing situation. During 1995-96 to 2015-16, about 3 lakh farmers in the country committed suicide due to economic distress and depression. The Election Manifesto of Bharatiya Janata Party in both 1998 and...

-Business Standard The organisations demanded higher Budgetary allocation for irrigation Some farmers’ organisations have demanded the Centre announce an income guarantee law for them to ensure a minimum income when crops fail and also when prices crash due to a bumper harvest. To be called the Remunerative and Universal Price Yield Assurance (RUPYA) Act, the legislation would guarantee a price deficiency payment in the event of a price crash, a market intervention scheme...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Demonetisation Demon will gouge India's economic growth in 2016-17 by at least half a percentage point, chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian told reporters after presenting the Economic Survey a day before the Budget. Subramanian, who was voicing his views for the first time on the deeply polarising subject of demonetisation, rejected the dire prophecies of other Oracles, including his former employer, the International Monetary Fund, that projected...

-The Hindu The welfare challenge lies in providing assistance to needy households to ensure adequate diets without creating conditions in which they opt for inferior diets that are too heavy on cereals With the Kerala government’s decision to implement the National Food Security Act (NFSA) from April, the whole country will be covered by the legislation. However, if we expect the NFSA to improve India’s malnutrition statistics, we may well be disappointed....