-The Indian Express The past couple of months have seen prices of a host of farm commodities surge, mainly on the back of drought in large parts of western and southern India, coupled with an early and harsher-than-usual summer. New Delhi, Pune: THE BJP-LED NDA government’s tenure has been marked by benign food prices. Consumer food inflation has ruled below general retail inflation for 31 months running, from September 2016 to...
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From Plate to Plough: Cow and cane -Ashok Gulati
-The Indian Express Farm distress, particularly the stray cattle menace and the crisis in livestock sector, and mounting sugarcane arrears could dampen the BJP’s performance in UP. If one wants to know the quality of our evolving democracy, one must watch the ongoing election campaign in India. It is great fun too. And nothing is more interesting than tracking it in Uttar Pradesh (UP), where the real political battle is being...
More »MSP was not 1.5 times the cost of production for most kharif crops during the last 6 agricultural years
In its 2014 election manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), among other things, promised to "take steps to enhance the profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production". In his 2018-19 Union budget speech too, the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley informed the Parliament that the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP had stated that the farmers should get at least 1.5 times the...
More »Deflation in WPI of 8 kharif crops observed during 2016-17 to 2018-19, while their MSPs grew at a positive rate
It is being said by economists that unlike the issue of low food production that gripped Indian agriculture for long in the past, the present problem is about farmers not getting remunerative prices against the crops that they are growing. According to farmer leaders, the policymakers are too late to realise that bitter truth. As a result, there is a growing disenchantment in the rural hinterland against the ruling government...
More »Desert blues -AM Jigeesh
-The Hindu Business Line The BJP faces its toughest battle in Rajasthan, where rural agrarian distress is more acute than elsewhere It has been a long summer for Anirudh Meena. The farmer from Kota in Rajasthan is still waiting for the government to financially compensate his brother Hukumchand Meena’s family. A garlic farmer, Humukchand took his life in May, after the price of the bulb came crashing down, leading to heavy financial...
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