Kerala, Punjab, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are among the major agriculturally important states that have banned the use of glyphosate citing its adverse impact on human health.
There has been criticism of the official statistics ever since MoSPI came out with new methodology to estimate the GDP on the base year of 2011-12 compared to earlier 2004-05.
Data from department of agriculture showed that kharif crops had been sown in around 31.56 million hectares till Friday, which was 104.25 per cent more than the same period last year. Acreage of almost all crops was higher than last year.
Experts say while the increasing demand for a ban on Chinese goods might make for good optics, the reality is that India is still heavily dependent on that country in a wide range of industries like electronics, mobile devices, auto, pharma, telecom equipment, and fertilisers.
Experts say a large part of the expenditure in April was spent on heads such as creating infrastructure for testing capacity and procuring testing kits, among other things.
Since March 2020, WPI food inflation rate continued to fall but the CPI-food inflation rose, signaling a breakdown in supply chain from the mandis to the final household.
Till date, MP has procured around 12.77 million tonnes of wheat, which is expected to reach 13 million tonnes by the time the process ends in the next few weeks.
The inflows came higher in March than in February of 2019-20 despite the lockdown for a week, reports Indivjal Dhasmana.
Kiran Vissa, co-convenor of National Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, said that amendments to the EC Act have nothing to do with farmers' welfare but instead meant to please big players and agriculture companies. This is because small and marginal farmers don't have the storage capacity to attract provisions of the EC Act.
The Centre managed to collect only Rs 990 crore as compensation cess in April 2020-21, almost one-ninth of the figure of Rs 8,874 crore mopped up a year ago. The subdued collection would further increase states' problems unless the GST Council, which meets next week, decides to borrow from the market.
The data primarily pertains to activities in March, which had only a few days under the Covid-19 lockdown. For April , hence, CGST collections could be much lower, fear analysts.
As the growth figures relate to pre-Covid lockdown period it does not reflect the real picture of distress which unfolded from April onwards in the sector, when acute supply disruption led to sharp drop in prices of many commodities largely perishables impacting farmers.
The locusts initially entered Rajasthan from Pakistan and from there the swarms moved towards Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab over the last few weeks and are now threatening to enter Uttar Pradesh, putting at risk the summer crop.
'The spirit of cooperation between the Centre and states has been diluted in many ways.' 'The level of consultation which used to be there earlier has reduced significantly.'
The government is looking at tweaking provisions of the Indian Contracts Act of 1872 to bring agreements between farmers and companies under its ambit, aiming to prevent exploitation of farm people.
Krishnamurthy Subramanian listed land, labour, law, and liquidity as the key areas of big reforms.
Later, there may be some tax relief aimed at the middle class and measures to benefit the sectors worst hit by Covid-19 and the resultant nationwide lockdown.
In total, the Centre plans to purchase around 40.7 million tonnes of wheat from farmers this year, which is almost 19 per cent more than last year.
However, experts say that unless clear guidelines are there, it remains to be seen how many people fall within the ambit and who remains excluded.
'India's sizeable foreign exchange reserves should serve as a buffer.'
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