-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Shri Arun Jaitley said that there is a need to conserve water, incentivize agro processing and promote balanced use of fertilizers in order to ensure higher agriculture productivity. The Finance Minister said that in order to achieve the goal of doubling the farmer’s income by 2022, there is need for better storage and marketing facilities for the...

-Down to Earth Can we not go from being poor but unhealthy to being rich and healthy? Why should we inherit diseases that can be junked? In June 2017, British medical journal Lancet published a review of the prevalence of diabetes in 15 states of India. This study by a group of medical practitioners, funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has worrying numbers. It finds that while some...

-The Financial Express By setting the target of doubling farmers’ income by 2022, the prime minister has clearly signalled a transition in agri-Food Policy from an excessive emphasis on foodgrain production towards improving welfare of the farming community. Given the continued excessive employment pressure, proliferation of small landholdings and growing agrarian crisis, this move is indeed an important change in the policy landscape. Doubling farmers’ income, however, requires identification of high-income...

-Down to Earth Jean Dreze argues that we should not leave the making of an equitable society to experts alone What does one make of the shameful statistic that over 200 million Indians still subsist below the poverty line? How does one square it with the equally obscene distinction that we have the world’s fourth largest number of billionaires, thus making India the second most unequal nation after Russia? Indeed, how...

-DNA India is expected to bear the brunt of $160 billion trade-distorting farm subsidies provided by developed nations like the US At a time when angry farmer protests seeking an increase in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all crops is on an upswing, India faces an uphill task to protect its food procurement operations at the forthcoming Buenos Aires Ministerial of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) from December 10-13. At...