-Frontline.in The Budget lacks any serious effort to address the main issues of unemployment, agrarian distress and falling incomes, revealing a high level of official insensitivity. A Budget during a time of recession, increasing unemployment, agrarian distress, falling incomes, demand constraint and malnutrition would have done well to first acknowledge the mess that policies have created and then taken steps to provide employment, boost rural incomes, increase purchasing power and thereby demand. Coming...

-Press release by Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) dated 1st February, 2020 New Delhi, February 1st 2020: A thorough analysis of the Budget shows that even though the Budget speech spoke much about Agriculture and Rural sector and a 16-point program, the allocations for the Rural Economy were in fact slashed in this Budget compared to previous year. The Budget allocation for Agriculture, Allied sectors and Irrigation in 2020-21...

-Press released by All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) dated 1st February, 2020 Delhi, February 1st 2020: Budget fails to increase rural demand and purchasing power which would have boosted the economy - instead, the Budget only boosts the profits of big corporates and MNCs, said AIKSCC. When the crying need in India’s economy is to increase the demand and purchasing power in rural areas, and hence rural incomes, the...

-The Hindu Farmers should not panic because they are too few in number to pose any threat, say agriculture departments of both States Chandigarh: Presence of locusts in a few villages of Punjab and Haryana bordering Rajasthan has raised anxiety among farmers about their crops. The agriculture departments of both the States have asked the farmers not to panic as it was “not a serious threat”'. Experts believe that appearance of locusts in...

-The Hindu Haryana pollution board told to file report within a month The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) to furnish a report on a plea which alleged that waste water being discharged had damaged crops and contaminated groundwater. Taking note of a November 2019 report furnished by the pollution control board, a Bench headed by NGT chief Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel said, “Let further action...