-The Hindu In the farm laws debate, the focus should be on the exchequer-farm subsidies issue and the spending on farm subsidies In the on-going debates around the three new pieces of agricultural legislation and the farmers’ demand for continuation of minimum support prices (MSP), questions have often been raised whether the government should be using the taxpayers’ money to provide subsidies to the farming community in this country. However, logically, two...

-The Indian Express The Centre is within its rights to enact laws promoting barrier-free trade of farm produce (inter- as well as intra-state) and also dismantling stockholding restrictions. But that can be only after the farmer has sold. In November 2019, the Fifteenth Finance Commission submitted its interim report, wherein it proposed special “performance based incentives” to states that carried out agriculture sector reforms. These reforms specifically pertained to their enacting and implementing...

-The Hindu “Economic conditions continued to improve through November on the back of the uptick in agriculture and manufacturing,” RBI officials say in an article in the central bank’s monthly bulletin. There is now more evidence to show that the Indian economy “is pulling out of COVID-19’s deep abyss and is reflating” at a pace that beats most predictions, RBI officials, including Deputy Governor Michael Patra, said in an article in the...

-The Indian Express The state has posted high growth rates in the agricultural sector in recent years, but the growth has been skewed in favour of the state's irrigated parts and a small number of crops. Madhya Pradesh is primarily an agricultural state. One third of its gross state domestic product comes from this sector, half of the state’s area is used for cultivation, and 70 per cent of the total workers...

-The Telegraph HINTERLAND: Our structural problem — small and marginal rain-fed sustenance farms, over 80 per cent of India’s agriculture sector — remains unaddressed Let’s understand the chronology: before the 2014 general elections, Narendra Modi promised farmers that he would comply with the Swaminathan Commission formula to arrive at a minimum support price for farm produce: a 50 per cent profit over the production cost. Post elections, he reneged on the promise...