-Livemint.com While trade policy is skewed against farmers, rural schemes lag behind targets, say the organizations New Delhi: The Union government has overlooked the spectre of rural distress and gone back on its promises to ensure remunerative returns to farmers, several farmer organizations claimed on Tuesday while releasing a paper on the state of Indian agriculture, ahead of the Union budget. Titled Green Paper on Farmers, Farming and Rural Economy 2018, the document...

-News18.com The first part of the report calls out the Modi government for reneging on key promises made to farmers ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. New Delhi: Ahead of the Union Budget 2018-19, the Yogendra Yadav-led Swaraj Abhiyan on Tuesday released a 31-page report titled ‘Kisan Green Paper 2018’. The subtitle of the report reads ‘4 years, 4 budgets: What has this Central Government delivered? The report slams the...

-Business Standard The Budget allocation for Ministry of Agriculture and allied activities has grown by 114% since 2010-11 As Finance Minister Arun Jaitley gets down to deliver his fifth annual Budget for the 2018-19 financial year, all eyes will be on his announcements for the rural sector which is going through a downturn in the last few years. Two consecutive droughts along with a sharp fall in incomes have turned agriculture unprofitable...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The upcoming Budget poses a big challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There are too many demands on the Budget while the government is expected to stick to its fiscal deficit targets. Traditionally, Modi's Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) has been seen to rely on middle-class voters—urban workers and small traders. But Modi's rise to power was fuelled equally by rural voters. Budget 2018-19 being the last full...

-The Indian Express The crisis in the crop’s prices in two of the four years of the Modi government illustrate that farmers no longer matter to it. Farmers are habitually great raconteurs. My grandfather would often narrate an episode, when he encountered a farmer sitting by a heap of potatoes in the middle of the night. On investigating what compelled the farmer to guard potatoes when there were no buyers, he was...