-The Indian Express While Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did not mention PM-Kisan in her Budget speech, she tried to assure farmers about the minimum support price (MSP). The Agriculture Ministry did not spend its full budget during 2020-21, leading to a reduction in the allocation in the revised estimates (RE) for the current financial year and a lower outlay for the next one. In Union Budget 2021-22, the two departments—Department of Agriculture,...
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Agriculture Ministry’s Claim on Farm Bill 'Consultations' Runs Contrary to its RTI Reply -Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar
-TheWire.in The Centre claimed in the Supreme Court that efforts had been made to speak to stakeholders before the laws were passed. Why, then, does the agricultural ministry have no record of these efforts? New Delhi: In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on Monday, the Centre claimed that “serious, sincere and constructive efforts [were] made by the Central Government to engage with the limited number of protesting farmers who are...
More »An economic disaster foretold -Amit Bhaduri and Deepankar Basu
-The Hindu The reported contraction of the economy is likely an underestimate for reasons of omission and commission According to data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation of the Government of India on August 31, 2020, real quarterly GDP contracted by a whopping 23.9% between April-June 2019 and April-June 2020. This magnitude of real GDP decline is unprecedented since the country started publishing quarterly GDP estimates in 1996. This...
More »Where is the staff to serve in rural areas and implement schemes?
Huge sums of money are allocated for the rural and agrarian sectors by the Union Government in its annual budget every year, and rightly so. But in the absence of an adequate number of officials in rural areas, can the various schemes and programmes of the government be implemented properly? We will find the answer if we think about this issue deeply and the answer that would emerge should bother...
More »Locust invasions in a number of Indian states have arisen out of climate change induced extreme rainfalls in desert areas
In the midst of COVID-19 lockdown, desert locust swarms have been seen in parts of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh in the second half of May 2020. The recent attacks by desert locust swarms have caused massive crop damage, depletion in the stock of cattle fodder and destruction of green vegetation in these states. As on 25th May, 2020, over half of Rajasthan’s 33 districts were...
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