-Down to Earth Mounting expenses, under-provisioning of food subsidy budget leading to a huge debt is highly worrisome A fiscal crisis has been brewing in the last few years. Mounting food subsidy arrears — payable to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) due to ‘under-provisioning’ of food subsidy expenses in successive union budgets — has forced FCI to take loans to finance its operations. FCI is the central agency that manages procurement, storage...
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Rise in atrocities against forest-dwellers during COVID-19 crisis, flags report -Ishan Kukreti
-Down to Earth Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs should create a COVID-19 response cell to monitor issues and provide support, it said The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis has hit the forest dwellers in India hard: The pandemic has led to a loss of livelihood and employment, caused food insecurity and socio-economic distress for the marginalised forest-dwelling communities, according to a new report. Atrocities and injustices faced by these communities due to forest,...
More »Maharashtra: Sudden micro lockdowns led to labour losses, spike in unemployment, says report -Sandeep A Ashar
-The Indian Express In a presentation made to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and senior ministers in a meeting on Monday, the state finance department claimed that the unemployment rate had climbed from 3.9 per cent in July to 6.2 per cent in August. Mumbai: A spike in Maharashtra’s unemployment rate in August is threatening the revival of the Covid-hit economy, a Government report has said. In a presentation made to Chief Minister Uddhav...
More »Explained: Why it’s an underestimate to say only 6% farmers benefit from MSP -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express The actual number could be anywhere between 15 per cent and 25 per cent. “Only 6% of Indian farmers benefit from minimum support prices (MSP)”. So widely-quoted is this figure — especially in the context of the recently-passed Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act — that it has become a factoid or even truism. What is, isn’t counted The apparent source of the 6% figure is the Shanta...
More »Farm Acts – unwanted constitutional adventurism -R Ramakumar
-The Hindu There is a case to argue that the three Acts have poor legal validity, may be unconstitutional and weaken federalism The passage of the three Farm Acts by Parliament has led to a constitutional debate. These Acts are: the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020....
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