-Livemint.com While Budget 2018’s agriculture focus may not revive the rural economy, whether it fetches any votes for the Narendra Modi govt will only be known next year Since this was the last full budget of the Narendra Modi-led government before the general elections next year, its contours were more or less known to everybody. The budget in that sense did not surprise. Given the tight fiscal situation, it was expected that...

-Livemint.com The budget to be presented on 1 February may be the last full budget of the Narendra Modi government unless it uses the opportunity to revive the economy The budget to be presented on 1 February will be the last full budget of this government. The budget in 2019 will only be a vote-on-account. But whether this will be the last full budget of the Narendra Modi government will depend on...

  Budgetary allocation to a particular sector indicates how much priority the government assigns to that sector as compared to the rest. A preliminary analysis by the Inclusive Media for Change team indicates that the actual expenditure (net of receipts and recoveries) by two of the country’s most important ministries, namely the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoAFW) and the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) was less than 1 percent...

-Livemint.com Distress in rural economy is not limited only to the agrarian sector but has also spilled over to the larger economy with unemployment becoming a major challenge 2017 has been a bad year for the economy. The fact that the economy is in crisis, particularly the rural economy, is no longer a matter of statistics. The recent elections in Gujarat have laid bare the fissures in the rural economy that have...

In the 3 months period following demonetisation, most job cuts happened for casual workers. This has been confirmed by the Labour Bureau's latest Quarterly Report on Employment Scenario in selected sectors. Although overall employment increased in the 8 major sectors of the economy by 1.85 lakhs between 1st January, 2017 and 1st April, 2017, employment of regular workers (1.97 lakhs) increased the most, followed by employment of contract workers (26,000...