To give the much-needed impetus to the farm sector, the Government will have its first agriculture survey this financial year in February on the lines of the economic survey. Sources said that the Agriculture Ministry’s apprehensions on the production growth to meet the National Food Security Bill’s demand have concerned the Government. Consequently, three months ago Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked the Agriculture Ministry to carry a separate survey to give...

MFIs in Andhra Pradesh are paying for the sins of their past. Market for new loans has dried up, banks have turned off their spigots while the AP government is content to sit back and watch. It has been eleven months since the Andhra Pradesh government issued an ordinance—later converted into the Andhra Pradesh Micro-Finance Institutions (Regulation of Money Lending) Act—which, the microfinance industry hoped, would be the magic remedy that...

-The Economic Times   The latest forecast of the Met office suggesting a weakening of the south-west monsoon during the second half of the monsoon season is not cause for panic. It is the distribution of rainfall across space and time rather than the aggregate percentages that matter for the farm sector. The good news is that both the spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall has been satisfactory so far. A good reservoir...

Plan to levy market rate on owners of luxury cars Faced with growing diesel consumption and rising under recoveries, the Union government on Thursday said it was working on “dual pricing of diesel” wherein luxury car owners could be asked to pay the market rate and subsidised diesel restricted to farmers and the transport sector. “These proposals are being considered by the Finance Ministry,” Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister S. Jaipal Reddy...

Experts at a discussion on "Two decades of economic reforms: The way forward", organized by CII, Bihar state centre, said the economic reforms had not lessened the urban-rural divide; hence rural people could not generate substantial demand in the economy, though the savings rate enhanced in the last two decades. Director, Asian Development Research Institute, P P Ghosh, said the savings rate had increased from 12% in 1951 to 35%...