In his Mann ki Baat address to the nation on 30th May, 2021, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi appreciated the fact that the farmers received "more than the minimum support price (MSP) for mustard" pertaining to the rabi production. One can easily guess from this statement of the PM that the mustard growers in Haryana (and elsewhere) preferred to sell their produce to private traders in the open market instead...

With the rise in Covid-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths since March this year, media reports (please click here and here) on migrant workers returning back to their native places (i.e. places of origin) from migration destinations (i.e. workplaces likes cities and large industrial towns to where the informal and low skilled workers from the marginalised sections of the society migrate seasonally, and sometimes for a longer duration,...

-The Hindu Move after meeting with manufacturers A day after fertilizer producers announced a sharp 46% to 58.33% hike in prices citing higher raw material costs, the Central government intervened on Friday to ensure a rollback even though fertilizer prices are no longer regulated. Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya said prices would remain unchanged for now, after a ‘high-level’ meeting was held with the major fertilizer companies. Opposition parties had...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...

-The Indian Express At the inaugural Indian Express Thinc Migration series presented by Omidyar Network India, moderated by Udit Misra, deputy associate editor, panelists discussed the crisis in India’s internal migration. On migration patterns S Irudaya Rajan: In the 2011 census, India had 450 million migrants. We have policies in the country to increase migration, and policymakers and economists, who believe urbanisation will lead to economic growth. This is reflected in the Smart...