-Down to Earth While sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh owe about Rs 12,500 crore to farmers, the government’s measures were directed mostly towards tackling current price crash In a knee-jerk reaction to the defeat in Kairana by-elections, the Narendra Modi government, on Wednesday, took a slew of policy decisions related to sugarcane industry. The plight of sugarcane farmers was a big issue during the recently concluded by-elections in this town in...

-Business Standard For 2017-18, overall full year, growth in agriculture and allied activities was estimated at 3.4 per cent as against 6.3 per cent clocked in 2016-17 India’s agriculture growth in the January to March quarter of 2017-18 dipped to 4.5 per cent as compared to 7.1 per cent in the same period last year despite a bumper production largely because of higher base. Though, the 4.5 per cent growth in agriculture and...

-The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy As Prime Minister Narendra Modi completes four years in office this month, it is becoming increasingly clear that his government has fallen short on the promises made during the 2014 election campaign. The economy has performed below expectations, and some of the economic metrics today are weaker than what the country witnessed in the last years – labelled the ‘policy paralysis’ phase –...

-The Hindu Trust in official statistics is vital for democracy — the new policy must avoid centralisation David Spiegelhalter, president of Royal Statistical Society in the U.K., gave a most unusual presidential address in 2017. Instead of talking about esoteric statistical techniques, he talked about declining trust in numbers in a post-truth society bombarded by fake news and alternative facts. He recommended to the statistical community that the best way of inspiring...

-Livemint.com While there are several creditable achievements, it is the deeper structural reforms where expectations from a strong government have not been met Amidst expectations of a magical transformation of the Indian economy, the Narendra Modi government took over the reins in May 2014. During the election campaign, people were led to believe that the Gujarat model of agricultural development, which delivered 8% growth in agriculture during fiscal years 2003-14, would be...