President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday said the country's farm production and procurement increased during 2020-21 crop year despite the pandemic and agricultural exports reached a record level of Rs 3 lakh crore during the same period. In his address to the joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament at the start of the Budget session, Kovind said the government is focusing on making the country self-sufficient in edible oils besides making special efforts to promote organic farming, natural farming and crop diversification. "My government is working continuously to empower the farmers and the rural economy of the country... I would like to give maximum credit to the small farmers of the country for this consistent success and strengthening of the agriculture sector," he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched 35 crop varieties with special traits -- developed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) -- to address the twin challenges of climate change and malnutrition. The new crop varieties were dedicated to the nation through a video conference organised at all ICAR institutes, state and central agricultural universities and Krishi Vighyan Kendra. According to the PMO, 35 crop varieties with special traits like climate resilience and higher nutrient-content have been developed in 2021.
The Nafed has outstanding dues of Rs 224.26 crore (Rs 2.24 billion) as of February 15.
The National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd has decided to actively trade in imported edible oils after failing to procure sufficient quantity of mustard seeds from the domestic market due to high price.
In terms of value, this translates into more than Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) of delivered quantity.
'The decision to supply free food grains is not an economically sound decision because the government will find it very difficult in future to charge anything for food grains.'
India believes rich nations should be away from farm subsidies.
If India wants to become a globally competitive manufacturing hub, it will have to rethink the notion that the traditional SMEs will form the manufacturing backbone, argues Prosenjit Datta.
Google is building voice and text search for over 100 Indian languages and will spend $75 million to support women-led startups in the country, said its CEO Sundar Pichai at the start of his visit to India - a nation that he saw as a big export economy. India, he said, will be a big export economy and it needs to create a balance between safeguarding citizens and enabling companies to innovate with its framework. Pichai first met Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and spoke at a Google for India 2022 event before calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A report by international agency Oxfam on Monday flayed rich countries for using World Trade Organisation
At an average national price of Rs 90 a kg in the retail market, it shows a jump by 20% in the last two months.
But the measures, particularly in agriculture, may not be enough to revive the sector and double the farm income, says S Mahendra Dev.
In a major development, India and the US have agreed to end six trade disputes at the WTO through mutually agreed solutions, while New Delhi will remove retaliatory customs duties on certain American products such as almonds, walnuts, and apples.
The interim free trade agreement between India and Australia will come into force on Thursday, providing duty-free access to thousands of domestic goods such as textiles, and leather in the Australian market. The agreement will help almost double the bilateral commerce to $45-50 billion in around five years, according to exporters and industry players. The Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA), which was signed on April 2, would provide duty-free access to Indian exporters of over 6,000 broad sectors, including textiles, leather, furniture, jewellery and machinery in the Australian market.
Expect a more modest out-turn of around 5 per cent (if not less) because of the longer-term scarring effects of the Covid shock, the sharply slowing growth in the pre-Covid years and some scepticism about the growth-efficacy of some of recent official policy initiatives, explains Shankar Acharya, former chief economic advisor to the government.
The MEP has been raised from $225 a tonne in May to $495 a tonne in October. Despite this, domestic onion prices have risen sharply. They are currently available at Rs 24 -28 per kg at the retail level, compared with Rs 8-10 a kg in May.
Starting with a family, which had a dealership of Bajaj Auto's scooters, to becoming the owner of a household name in consumer appliances who could afford to have Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador, Venugopal Dhoot's is a story of an aggressive small town businessman's pursuit to be on the top. Now arrested in connection with the ICICI Bank loan fraud case, Venugopal Dhoot during his heydays was not the one to simply sit on small achievements like Videocon becoming the largest television set manufacturer in India.
The Union Budget on Wednesday outlined several initiatives to drive India's technology agenda and boost digital infrastructure, including new centres of excellence for artificial intelligence, National Data Governance Policy, and Entity DigiLocker.
Let's wait for the monetary policy on February 8 -- to see how it complements the fiscal commitments, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The statement of the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's office comes on the heels of India issuing a notice to Pakistan seeking a review and modification of the IWT in view of Islamabad's "intransigence" in complying with the dispute redressal mechanism of the pact that was inked over six decades ago for sharing of waters of cross-border rivers.
Panagariya also stressed that India must continue the liberalisation of its top tariff rates and the country should not revert back to import substitution.
'Crony capitalism will gain due to these Acts.'
The government has swung into action to curb onion exports and check the rise in prices in the domestic market by effecting an 8 per cent hike in its minimum export price.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said inflation management cannot be "singularly" left to the monetary policy as a majority of activities are outside its purview in the current context. Speaking at a seminar organised by economic think-tank Icrier, the finance minister said that both the fiscal policy and the monetary policy have to work together to contain inflation. Consumer price index (CPI) based inflation or retail inflation is ruling above the Reserve Bank's comfort level of 6 per cent since January.
In a bid to boost onion exports and ensure remunerative prices to farmers, the Union Cabinet on Tuesday night decided to remove quantitative restrictions on its export.
The government and the farm unions had reached some common ground on Wednesday to resolve the protesting farmers' concerns over rise in power tariff and penalties for stubble burning, but the two sides remained deadlocked over the main contentious issues of the repeal of three farm laws and a legal guarantee for MSP.
'The most important priority for the next 25 years should be to strengthen our democracy so that it is supportive of social harmony, and to not just respect but to take pride in the diversity of Indian society in terms of the variety of languages, religion and religious practices and social norms,' explains Nitin Desai.
Supreme Court-appointed farm panel member Anil Ghanwat on Friday described as regressive the central government's decision to repeal the three farm laws which were at the centre of protests by farmers for the past year.
For all its claims to economic glory, the majority of India's population lives vulnerable lives, a situation that has only worsened over the past 15 years, to the extent that the government now fears to release economic data or even conduct a proper Census, notes Rathin Roy.
The Union government could target a fiscal deficit of 5.8-6 per cent of nominal GDP for 2023-24, and it should continue its capital expenditure push and look to simplify the personal income tax regime, economists recommended Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her team during their pre-Budget interaction on Monday. Starting last week, Sitharaman had eight pre-Budget consultations this time. More than 110 invitees representing seven stakeholder groups participated in these meetings, the finance ministry said in a statement. The stakeholder groups included representatives and experts from agriculture and agro-processing industry; industry, infrastructure & climate change; financial sector and capital markets; services and trade; social sector; trade unions and labour organisations; and economists.
Where do the four members of the Supreme Court appointed panel to interface with farmers stand on the Modi government's farm laws?
India has been at the forefront of efforts at the UN to push for urgent long-pending reform of the Security Council, emphasising that it rightly deserves a place at the UN high table as a permanent member.
He is not good at thinking through laws and policies. His lockdown produced chaos and misery and didn't stop Covid. His GST finished off thousands of companies and reduced the amount of tax government collects to such an extent that he cannot pay state governments any more, observes Aakar Patel.
Currently, the Department of Agriculture runs two crop insurance schemes, one of which is weather-based.
With grain procurement target significantly higher, FCI is faced with storage space shortage.
In a meeting with the President on behalf of these 18 non-National Democratic Alliance parties, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said he has requested the President to return the bills, and only give his assent after they have been passed after following proper rules and procedures.
Exemptions, and the fact that farm income is outside the tax net, ensure that India's tax-GDP ratio stays low.
Hosabale blamed the "faulty' economic policies of the earlier governments for the "ills" in the economy.
'According to CMIE data, employment in manufacturing saw a reduction from 51 million in the country in 2016 to 27 million in 2021. 'That is, it has halved in just 5 years. 'At the same time, the national lockdown resulted in reverse migration to rural areas, and an increase in the number of workers in agriculture. 'It also means joblessness has increased in agriculture because there are too many workers; the number of workers went up from 200 million to 232 million.'
Seven of the meetings will be held in late November or early December at the finance ministry, as is the norm.
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