The common man, whose concerns were at the heart of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance’s two successful election campaigns, doesn’t seem to be the focus of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s budget. Experts and political analysts say the aam admi doesn’t appear to be the dominant concern anymore, prompting speculation about Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi’s role. She has thus far been setting the UPA’s social agenda through the National Advisory Council...
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Agri survey bats for pvt participation
-The Business Standard The first agriculture survey, tabled in Parliament on Monday, called for more private participation to boost farm sector investments, rather than heavy doses of subsidies. “There is always a trade-off between allocating money through subsidies or by increasing investments. The investment option is much better than subsidies for sustaining long-term growth in agricultural production and also to reduce poverty faster,” said the survey, State of Indian Agriculture 2011-2012. It...
More »Budget 2012: Introduce VAT on farm produce, says government report
-PTI With agriculture share in GDP halving to 15 per cent in the last two decades, a government report card today called for major reforms, from marketing to investment, and new technologies for accelerating farm growth. The report on 'State of Indian Agriculture 2011-12', tabled in the Lok Sabha said, "Achieving an 8-9 per cent rate of growth in overall gross domestic produce (GDP) may not deliver much in terms of poverty...
More »World food prices rise in February: United Nations' FAO index
-Reuters Global food prices rose in February from the previous month, driven by gains in grains, vegetable oils and sugar, the United Nations' FAO index showed on Thursday, adding inflationary pressure. The index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 215.3 points in February, up from a revised 212.8 points in January, data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) showed. The FAO...
More »Dr Abhijit Sen, Member-Planning Commission of India, interviewed by Ajay Vir Jakhar and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
Dr Abhijit Sen is Member, Planning Commission of India. He is a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge (currently on leave as Professor of Economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University) and has also taught at the Universities of Sussex, Oxford and Cambridge. Besides serving various think tanks in the states and at the centre, Dr Sen has been a consultant with UNDP, ILO, FAO and various other multilateral...
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