-The Indian Express As farmers take to dumping their milk on roads and stopping milk supply to urban areas, dairies blame the COVID-19 pandemic and the frequent lockdowns as the reason behind the recent price corrections. Milk prices are again in the news and this time the low realisations at farmer ends have brought them on the streets. Dairy farmers in Maharashtra have started a series of protests from Monday against the...

-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...

-Livemint.com Slogans, vision statements and acronyms are unlikely to be of any help to those in distress As the details of the mega fiscal package of ₹20 trillion announced by the prime minister are slowly being revealed by the finance minister (FM), it is increasingly becoming clear that it has less to do with the immediate crisis of lives and livelihood and more to do with the long-term agenda of reforms and...

-The Indian Express Lockdown has led to demand destruction similar to demonetisation even for commodities such as potato and milk that were till recently in short supply While there is debate on how much the lockdown has helped in “flattening the Covid-19 curve”, one thing is clear: It has led to a flattening of prices through a “leftward shift in the demand curve”. The best way to illustrate this is through two agricultural...

-Livemint.com * India’s cattle are on an enforced diet, milk’s value is on the slide and chicken farmers are in deep despair * The livestock sector contributes 30% to India’s agricultural GDP and is valued at over ₹9 trillion. Yet, during the lockdown, policy and remedial interventions have largely focused on crops NEW DELHI: Shravan Kumar Yadav often wakes up in the middle of the night these days. The incessant mooing and grunting...