-The Telegraph The Union budget is an extended piece of fiction There is one central message of the Narendra Modi government to the people of India from Budget 2021-22: you will have to be ‘atmanirbhar’ because you’re on your own. The Central government does not have your back. In the midst of the worst health and economic crisis the country has faced since Independence, it will not protect you. It will not...

-Down to Earth blog The distress among small farmers in India is market-driven to a large extent in both ways — too much protection (minimum support PRIce) or too little. The question of future of Indian agriculture has been around for some time now since the agrarian distress and crisis in the sector. It has become important in the context of the spate of recent reforms that include permitting PRIvate wholesale markets,...

-The Indian Express The budget should have shown how serious it was about inclusive growth by announcing direct cash support to informal workers, circular migrants, agricultural labour, in addition to steady in-kind food transfers from the overflowing coffers of the FCI by making PDS universal. India’s annual budget, announced amidst much anticipation, focused on health as one of its key pillars. The fact that health and “inclusive growth” found their way into...

-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,...

-The Hindu That there is no targeted employment programme to alleviate the immediate crisis is a matter of concern The Budget, at its simplest, is the government’s tentative income and expenditure statement. Like all financial statements, the devil lies in the fine PRInt. At its broadest, the Budget is a pious statement of the government’s policy and ideological intentions. It is also the government’s statement of how it seeks to tackle the...