Representatives of around 20 civil society organizations and NGOs met the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley as part of pre-budget consultation on social sector on 12 January, 2016. Immediately after the pre-budget consultation, a press conference was held by some of these organizations to convey the media persons what demands/ suggestions were made. Subrat Das, Executive Director of Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA, http://www.cbgaindia.org/) informed us that during...
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Agriculture has high hopes from this Budget
-Business Standard Govt should revamp agricultural marketing to increase farmers' earnings and amend land-leasing laws Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has met farm sector representatives for pre-Budget consultations at a time Indian agriculture is passing through a bad patch - especially because of two years of consecutive drought. Predictably, therefore, most participants pitched for more credit on soft terms, higher minimum support prices (MSP) for crops and the expansion of irrigation facilities to...
More »Destruction of the Doha Round
-Economic and Political Weekly India plays a poor hand at the World Trade Organization's negotiations. The idea that there is no longer a sharp divide between the global North and the global South has been disproved in ample measure by the decisions taken last month in Nairobi at the 10th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The essence of the final communique is that the 14-year-old Doha “Development” Agenda (DDA)...
More »From Plate to Plough: The fertiliser challenge -Ashok Gulati
-The Indian Express The sector is ripe for reform. Will the Centre bite the bullet in the next budget? One of the top economic priorities of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to boost the manufacturing sector. Much of the effort to attract FDI is geared towards this. But the fertiliser sector has not seen any major fresh investment in the last 15 years or so. Some urea manufacturers are even seriously thinking of...
More »Stalemate continues at WTO meet in Nairobi -Arun S
-The Hindu The WTO Nairobi meet — which was expected to produce by noon local time (2.30 PM IST) on Friday a Ministerial Declaration to liberalise global trade — stretched into overtime with the developing and the developed world failing to bridge their differences over farm issues as well as on whether to continue with the ongoing 14-year-old Doha Round talks. Hectic parleys were on between member countries, during the last day...
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