-NDTV blog Nirmala Sitharaman said: "We have spent, we have spent and we have spent." She had every reason to claim that, since the budget numbers show that the centre spent ₹ 4.1 lakh crore, or 13 percent above what it had planned for last year. Additional spending will continue this year: expenditure is estimated to go up by 14.5 percent in 2021-2022 compared to last year, even though the government's...

-The Hindu With protests becoming catalysts for anti-authoritarian struggle, the air is ripe for new visions of rural emancipation Those familiar with the systematic attack on agriculture in South Asia over the last decades will not be surprised at the ongoing farmers’ protests in India. It could have been Pakistan, where farmers protesting for support prices were beaten up and arrested in Lahore only a month ago, or Sri Lanka, where shortages...

-The Indian Express Dr. Varinderpal Singh, Principal Soil Chemist at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, went up on the dais at an event organised by the Fertilizers Association of India in the Capital on Monday, but refused to receive the award from the Union minister for chemicals and Fertilizers. Ludhiana: In more symbolic support to the farmers’ protest on the fringes of Delhi, a senior agricultural scientist refused to accept an award...

-Society for Social and Economic Research The economic reforms which were started in 1991 shifted the focus of Fertilizer policies away from playing a leading role in building the Fertilizer industry and ensuring the availability of Fertilizers at affordable prices to farmers. Under the neo-liberal policy framework, reducing the fiscal burden of Fertilizer subsidies and the foreign exchange burden of Fertilizer-related imports became the overriding concerns of the state.  Interestingly, the post-liberalisation...

-The Hindu The crisis in agriculture demands that the government announce a strong fiscal stimulus for the rural economy A rather confident statement heard in the midst of India’s COVID-19-induced economic slowdown is this: “Agriculture will lead India’s economic revival”. But how valid is this claim put forward by government spokespersons and some observers? Four major arguments are offered. First, India’s food grain production in 2019-20 was 3.7% higher than in 2018-19. The...