-TheWire.in The insurance coverage in 2015 was 22.3%, with a government expenditure of Rs 2,955 crore. But by spending 4.5x since, how does the government admit to a coverage of only 23%? Farmer suicides and agrarian distress have likely never been among the national public debates as they are right now. A group of Tamil Nadu farmers, whose protests in New Delhi were dubbed ‘bizarre’ but who were actually desperate for debate and...
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In loan waivers, 'moral hazard' and continued hope for political gains -Shaji Vikraman
-The Indian Express Urjit Patel has voiced concern publicly over the latest loan waiver — saying it engendered a moral hazard and undermined the honest credit culture. In February 1990, in the months preceding the build-up to the balance of payments crisis the next year, Madhu Dandavate, Finance Minister in V P Singh’s National Front government, announced a debt relief scheme for farmers to fulfill a promise made by the alliance in...
More »Prelude to a contagion -Ashok Gulati & Siraj Hussain
-The Indian Express UP’s farm loan waiver could prompt other states to follow suit, evade real reasons for agricultural distress The new Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, has hit the ground running. In his first cabinet meeting, he took three important decisions with regard to farmers. First, he waived farm loans of more than Rs 36,000 crore, primarily of the small and marginal farmers who comprise 92 per cent of the...
More »State of Agriculture in India -Tanvi Deshpande
-PRS Legislative Research The key findings of the report entitled: State of Agriculture in India by Tanvi Deshpande (March, 2017) are as follows: * The agriculture sector employs nearly half of the workforce in the country. However, it contributes to 17.5% of the GDP (at current prices in 2015-16). * Over the past few decades, the manufacturing and services sectors have increasingly contributed to the growth of the economy, while the agriculture sector’s...
More »Not much vikas: Did the prime minister's record on development and governance impress UP voters? -Kanti Bajpai
-The Times of India Blog Whatever else won UP for BJP it wasn’t development and good governance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to office ostensibly on a plank of economic and administrative ‘acche din’. Sadly, he has not delivered. So voters either don’t know his record or they voted for BJP for quite different reasons. What is the prime minister’s record on development and governance? In three years of BJP rule at...
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