-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 Indian Express The FM’s other ideas for agriculture, especially on Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), which she repeated this year, need to be tested before it becomes a national policy. In her Budget speech, Nirmala Sitharaman spelled out sixteen measures to reboot agriculture and re-affirmed the Modi government’s resolve to double farmers’ incomes by 2022. Agriculture is categorized by her as “Aspirational India”. All these sixteen measures are broadly in the...

-The Hindu Announcing new income tax proposals in the Union Budget 2020, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the new tax rates will be optional. In a proposal to simplify the personal income tax regime, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in the Union Budget 2020 speech, said that income tax rates will be “significantly reduced” for those who forgo reliefs and exemptions. The new tax rates will be optional, she said. Please click here...

-Hindustan Times Currently, two of the Government of India’s (GoI) largest schemes focussed on reviving the rural economy have been the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN). With food inflation hitting 14% in December 2019 and real rural wages declining for eight consecutive months (latest data available till October), rural India is among the worst hit by the current economic slowdown. Providing...

-The Indian Express Boosting consumption by leaving people with higher disposable incomes is the key strategy The fine print of the Union Budget for 2020-21 notwithstanding, the central strategy of the government seems to be to boost the disposable incomes of the Indian consumers. * What was the problem slowing down the economy? Typically, there are four engines of GDP (gross domestic product) growth. These are as follows: Consumption of the private individuals (or...