-The Hindu In contrast to its pronouncements, the government’s own data suggest the economy is in a deep hole Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day address, spoke triumphantly about how demonetisation drove ?3 lakh crore of unaccounted money into the banking system. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is still counting old notes, and unaccounted money cases are ongoing. Thus, this number is at best a guesstimate, and cannot be...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's growth juggernaut has started to lose steam. In the mid-year Economic Survey, chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian flagged big risks to economic growth and fiscal targets while asserting that the country had entered a "new phase of relatively low, possibly very low, inflation". In the first volume of the survey published in January, the government had forecast GDP growth in the range of 6.75 to 7.5 per cent...

-The Indian Express The woes of pulses farmers and traders like Kagi can be put down to all-time-high imports of 6.6 mt (valued at Rs 28,524.05 crore) on top of a record domestic production of 22.4 mt in 2016-17 — made worse by the weak, behind-the-curve policy response whether to do with trade or stockholding restrictions. Agriculture in India has always suffered from lethargic and uncoordinated policy response. And there can be...

-The Financial Express Pune: This season, the increasing incidence of crop damage by pink bollworm in the early stages of cotton planting has evoked concern among farmers in Maharahstra. Even as the state government administration has asked farmers to remain vigilant on the pest infestation, industry people have raised concerns if farmers could afford the solutions required. Senior scientists at the Central Institute of Cotton Research ( CICR), Nagpur said that...

-The Indian Express For farmers, a uniform 2 per cent premium rate on sum insured (SI) for all kharif or monsoon season foodgrains and oilseeds, while 1.5 per cent for rabi winter crops and 5 per cent for annual commercial and horticultural crops, is the lowest they can hope for. The country couldn’t possibly have, at least on paper, a better agricultural crop insurance scheme than the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima...