-Down to Earth Government reports say 2004-14 had the highest agriculture growth that has fast slipped back to near-zero growth despite normal monsoons and bumper yields The National Democratic Alliance government is scrambling to rescue the agriculture sector from a crisis never seen before. On January 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met over 100 economists in a first ever such interaction. Agriculture, Rural Economy and unemployment dominated the discussions. Modi’s promise of...
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The map of rural deprivation -Santosh Mehrotra
-The Hindu For millions hit by agricultural distress, the escape to construction jobs is grinding to a halt With the Union Budget to be presented on February 1, it is hoped that the Finance Minister will make a significantly higher allocation for investment in infrastructure. It is vital for addressing rural distress. The Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) informed us that ‘landlessness and dependence on manual casual labour for a livelihood...
More »Jobs Increase in 2017 - Just 0.5% -Subodh Varma
-Newsclick.in PM Modi - who promised to create 1 crore jobs - is supremely indifferent to this crushing crisis. In Jind district of Haryana, 8 posts of peon and one post of process server were advertised. Authorities were inundated with 14,836 applications for the former and 3662 for the latter. That’s about 2055 applicants per vacancy. Although the peon’s position required just class 10 eligibility, graduates, post graduates and even PhD...
More »Some red flags in the economy numbers: Agriculture is the most alarming -RN Bhaskar
-MoneyControl.com When agriculture’s GVA growth climbed from -0.2% in 2014-15, to 0.7% in 2015-16, everyone expected agriculture to continue doing well. This was confirmed by this growth rate further rising to 4.9% in 2016-17. But what happened now? So it is finally official. The fears that most people had kept suppressed – about India witnessing an economic slowdown – have been realised. The Central Statistical Office (CSO) came out last week with...
More »Why farmers don't have electoral clout -Avik Saha and Yogendra Yadav
-Down to Earth Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its “vote bank”, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy....
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