-Society for Social and Economic Research Monograph 20/3 Key Messages Lack of planning and preparation by the Central government for tackling the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a massive blow to India’s economy and has caused enormous hardships to working people of the country. Harvesting of Rabi crops • Unplanned and sudden imposition of the lockdown resulted in a massive and unprecedented disruption to agricultural activities such as harvesting, sale of agricultural produce, and purchase...
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A plan to revive a broken economy -Harsh Mander, Jayati Ghosh and Prabhat Patnaik
-The Hindu There are clear, implementable steps the Centre can take in fiscal terms to revive the economy and support livelihoods The Prime Minister has just announced Lockdown 4.0. Despite some resulting increase in economic activity, vast numbers of working people will remain without their regular incomes. He also announced a package of ₹20 lakh crore, but this includes already allocated money of ₹6-lakh crore and monetary policy directives to banks and...
More »The country has miles to go in reducing maternal deaths
A high maternal mortality ratio (MMRatio) indicates low status of women in the society apart from poor functioning of the health services delivery system. Recently released data by the Sample Registration System (SRS) bulletin indicates that for the country as a whole the MMRatio has steadily declined from 398.0 in 1997-98 to 122.0 in 2015-17, which is a fall by -69.3 percent. Table-1 shows that India's MMRatio was 398.0 in 1997-98,...
More »RCEP's threat to agriculture staved off, but that does not solve the sector's problems -Siraj Hussain
-TheWire.in In the last five years, India’s exports of agricultural commodities have gone down from $43.25 billion in FY 2014 to $39.20 billion in FY’2019. The run-up to the RCEP leader summit in Bangkok last week was truly amazing. While farmers and trade union activists from both the Left and Right were opposed to India signing the RCEP, the government seemed to be in two minds. Indeed, senior ministers were reluctant...
More »Subhash Palekar, father of Zero Budget Natural Farming, interviewed by N Madhavan (The Hindu Business Line)
-The Hindu Business Line Speaking to BusinessLine at a farm on the outskirts of Aurangabad, Subhash Palekar, father of ZBNF, rebuts every criticism and allays every fear that have been raised The Modi government sees zero budget natural farming (ZBNF) as a solution to the farm crisis. The 2018-19 Economic Survey recommended it and so did the 2019 Union Budget. In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised many by asking farmers not...
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