-The Hindu The crisis in agriculture demands that the government announce a strong fiscal stimulus for the rural economy A RATher confident statement heard in the midst of India’s COVID-19-induced economic slowdown is this: “Agriculture will lead India’s economic revival”. But how valid is this claim put forward by government spokespersons and some observers? Four major arguments are offered. First, India’s food grain production in 2019-20 was 3.7% higher than in 2018-19. The...

-The Telegraph The economic distress caused by unilaterally imposed lockdowns has brought the focus back on the rural job programme Narendra Modi’s cocky statement in Parliament in 2015 about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act being a monumental failure of the Congress regime may have been a political jibe, but it showed that the government had no intention of boosting a programme which, since its inception, has suffered from the...

-GaonConnection.com Chhattisgarh has become the first state in the country to reopen its anganwadi centres amid the COVID-19 to offer health and nutrition services to kids and women After remaining shut for almost half a year, 55,000 anganwadis in Chhattisgarh reopened yesterday on September 7 to provide hot nutritious meals and health services to 1.5 million children under the age of six years, and 0.5 million pregnant and lactating women registered with...

-The Indian Express The stand of Indian government is devoid of any macro-economic logic. It is not a contra-cyclical, but a pro-cyclical stance. And it is untenable, legally and morally. The relation between the Centre and the states has reached its nadir with the controversy over the GST compensation payment. The shortfall in GST revenues in 2020-21 from the protected level will be of the order of Rs 3 lakh crore. The...

-Financial Express Signs of a weakening of the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) networks are now evident across major farm production centres in the country, heralding an era of unfettered market access and bolstered bargaining strength for farmers. On June 5, the Centre promulgated three Ordinances reforming the country’s agriculture marketing, and their impact on the trade has been RATher sudden and material: During the June 6-August 31 period, mandi arrivals of...