-PTI/The Telegraph In December 2021, the retail inflation stood at 5.66 per cent Retail inflation dipped below the RBI's upper tolerance level of 6 per cent for the first time in 11 months in November as softening prices of food items brought relief but the central bank may wait for more data before pausing hikes in interest rates. As per the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Monday, the consumer...
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Wheat Prices Zoom, Ration Offtake Falls -Subodh Varma
-Newsclick.in The government appears to be blithely indifferent to the devastation caused by its food grain mismanagement. The latest available data shows that the allocation of wheat for distribution through the Public Distribution System (PDS)— the ration system as it is known—has fallen dramatically this year. This has naturally led to a drop in offtake, that is, the distribution to needy families. Till October 2022, 115 lakh tonnes of wheat was allocated from...
More »Instead of Withdrawing Food Security, a Minimum Income Guarantee Is Needed -Santosh Mehrotra, Anjana Rajagopalan and Rakesh Ranjan
-TheWire.in A Minimum Income Guarantee would not just cushion exogenous shocks, but would arrest the process of vulnerability begetting vulnerability. While the worst of the pandemic is behind us, there has been a decline in general purchasing power amidst inflation. The provisional Consumer food price Index (combined for rural and urban) for September 2022 is pegged at 8.6%, a huge increase from 0.68% for September 2021. The latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)...
More »India’s agrarian sector needs a budget boost -Yamini Aiyar and Mekhala Krishnamurthy
-Hindustan Times Farm policymaking slowed down after the repeal of three laws in 2021. But the climate crisis, geopolitical instability and inflation have exacerbated the urgency for reforms In November 2021, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi repealed three contentious farm laws in a dramatic turnaround. The entire episode — from the passage of the laws, the protests that followed and the turnaround — had stalled national agriculture policymaking. Yet, as this column...
More »Punjab, Haryana can hedge India against climate-induced food shortages. See data - Siraj Hussain and Shweta Saini
-ThePrint.in The two states earned a lot of flak during the farmers’ agitation for demanding continuation of the existing system of APMCs and MSP operations. The global events of the last one year, especially during the Russia-Ukraine war, have again shown the importance of food security to the world. It is critical for India too as it has to provide food to a large population of about 1.39 billion people. Punjab and...
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