-Livemint.com Taking a cue from election results, political parties may announce more farm loan waivers but this will do little to fix the persistent distress in rural households The drubbing of the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh has proved beyond doubt that all isn’t well in India’s hinterland. An analysis of the poll results in these three states show that the...
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Maitreesh Ghatak, Professor of Economics at London School of Economics, interviewed by Tathagata Bhattacharya (National Herald)
-National Herald Maitreesh Ghatak, Professor of Economics at London School of Economics, in an interview to Tathagata Bhattacharya says the government has failed on many counts At the end of the day, it is growth and employment generation via new investment that is key to long-term economic progress. Various welfare schemes are a way of providing a social safety net to the poor in the short-run. It is performance along these two...
More »Are loan waivers the only way to help farmers? -Sanjay Kaul
-The Hindu Business Line The trend of farm loan waivers has gripped the country and Karnataka is the latest to jump on to the bandwagon. The fiscal strain of farm loan waivers on the States is worrisome. As per RBI, the gross fiscal deficit (GFD) of States rose to 3.1 per cent of GDP in 2017-18, breaching the threshold of 3 per cent GFD/GSDP ratio recommended by the Finance Commission. This threshold has...
More »Dalit women are brewing their own social revolution -Ashwaq Masoodi
-Livemint.com After being on the sidelines of Dalit and feminist movements for long, Dalit women are now standing up for their rights New Delhi: In 2008, seven women, aged 19-24, walked into a police station in Haryana’s Indri village in Kurukshetra district. Dressed in salwar-kameez with dupattas draped around their necks, they looked tired but confident, angry and brimming with questions. They wanted to meet the SHO and ask why no FIR...
More »Is loan waiver a panacea for rural distress? -Nilanjan Banik
-Financial Express Loan waivers adversely affect marginal farmers due to a reduction of Formal credit channels given to them On the eve of the Karnataka election, waivers of farm loans were one of the major election promises. Now, chief minister HD Kumaraswamy wants to fulfill his pre-poll promise and even threatened to resign if he cannot fulfill his promise. As has been seen time and time again, “farmers first” provides political mileage....
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