-TheWire.in The making of the Union Budget has been a far too secretive and hidden exercise. Social sector expenditure and allocations related to policy announcements should be matters of open ongoing debate. On December 20, 2017, a group of 60 eminent economists sent an open letter to the finance minister stating: “We are writing to draw your attention to two urgent priorities for the forthcoming budget.” The first was to increase the central...
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'Formalising' the Economy: What's in It for Workers? -Karuna Dietrich Wielenga and Shashank Kela
-TheWire.in The Modi government’s attempts to reshape the economy lie entirely in the financial realm; they come on the back of concerted efforts to strip workers of legal protection in not just the informal sector, but also the formal. The Narendra Modi government has made two major interventions in the economic sphere, demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST), with the ostensible aim of expanding the formal sector at the expense...
More »Budget 2018 and Agriculture: MSP promise fails to cut ice with farmers -Parthasarathi Biswas
-The Indian Express For farmers like Bhawane, it’s not the promised MSPs, but the prices for the chana and tur/arhar (pigeon-pea) they would be selling in the next fortnight or so that’s the real concern. Latur: Dhananjay Bhawane has little hope of the standing chana (chickpea) crop on eight out of his 10-acre field fetching anywhere near the government’s minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 4,400 per quintal, when it is...
More »Is the government marketing millets right? -Ranjit K Sahu, Ravi Shankar Behera, Bidyut Mohanty & Sibabrata Choudhury
-Down to Earth India requires policy changes to make millets an effective tool against malnutrition Nutrient-rich millets, which have been a crucial part of human diet since ancient times, have lost their importance due to globally commercialised agronomic practices to produce more foodgrains. Though awareness has been growing among the public in the recent years about the health benefits of a millet-based diet—high fibre, low carbohydrate, protein-rich and gluten-free—gaps persist on several...
More »Why MSP at 1.5 Times Cost Is Another Empty Promise for Farmers -Kabir Agarwal
-TheWire.in Arun Jaitley’s Budget speech was vague on the details, and closer inspection reveals that it was also misleading. Arun Jaitley, presenting his fourth Budget as finance minister, announced that he is fulfilling a promise made by his party in the election manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections – the promise of a minimum support price (MSP) that is 50% higher than farmers’ cost of production. “Government has decided to keep...
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