-The Indian Express The ongoing price recovery in major crops is in danger of being stymied by knee-jerk government response. A lot of analyst commentary on the latest quarterly GDP numbers for India has focused on the low growth in “nominal” terms: Gross value added (GVA) at current prices grew by just 6.3% year-on-year in July-September and 7.1% for April-September. If this first-half trend holds for the rest of 2019-20, it would...
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A potential seedbed for private profits -R Ramakumar
-The Hindu The new Seeds Bill is tilted against farmers’ interests and loaded in favour of seed companies. After passing through at least two versions, Seeds Bill 2019 is now under Parliament’s consideration. The earlier versions of the Bill, in 2004 and 2010, had generated heated debates. The present version promises to be no different. In 1994, India signed the agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). In 2002, India also...
More »In many countries, less than 5% of people benefit from adult learning opportunities: UNESCO -Mini Tejaswi
-The Hindu The UNESCO report was published by Institute for Lifelong Learning, based on data submitted by 159 countries, including India. Investments in adult learning and education (ALE) have steadily decreased in the last decade. Nearly a fifth of the UNESCO member countries reported spending less than 5% of education budget on ALE and a further 14% reported spending less than 1%, says a UNESCO report published by Institute for Lifelong Learning,...
More »India's rural poverty has shot up -Pramit Bhattacharya & Sriharsha Devulapalli
-Livemint.com Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha have seen sharp increases in poverty rates over the past few years, an analysis of the national statistical office data suggests Ever since India moved to a high growth trajectory in the 1980s, poverty rates have consistently declined over time. Until now. A Mint analysis of the consumption expenditure numbers reported by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in a hushed-up report suggests that rural poverty rose nearly 4...
More »India's fertiliser drain: Urea of darkness -Sarthak Ray
-Financial Express A study by ICRIER researchers Ashok Gulati and Pritha Banerjee shows how problematic the fertiliser policy is—for farmers, industry, the environment and the government. India’s experience with fertilisers, in the later part of the Green Revolution, prompted it to adopt a policy of subsidising fertilisers. In 1977, the country had a total NPK (nitrogenous, phosphatic and potassic) fertiliser consumption of 4.3 million metric tonnes (mmt) and per hectare usage...
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