Busting Urban Legends
France was only 55 per cent urban in the 1940s; so were large parts of Europe. Today, France, Italy and Spain, not to mention Germany and Scandinavia, are only 2-3 per cent rural. This is an indication of their prosperity. Latin America has just driven in to the smart set. Its high speed urbanisation, like a souped-up limo, touched 85 per cent at [...]
Livestock rearing — key to poverty reduction strategies
Livestock rearing is a key livelihood and risk mitigation strategy for small and marginal farmers, particularly across the rain-fed regions of India. Livestock products comprised 32 per cent of the total value of agriculture and allied activities in 2006-07 which was a noticeable increase from 27 per cent in 1999-2000 and from 1980-81 when it [...]
P. Sainath: And yet another pro-farmer budget
The real heroes of India's success story were our farmers. Through their hard work, they ensured “food security” for the country. — Pranab Mukherjee, interim budget speech Feb. 16, 2009 This Budget belongs to 'Aam Aadmi'. It belongs to the farmer, the agriculturist, the entrepreneur and the investor. — Pranab Mukherjee, budget speech, [...]
M Govinda Rao: Damned if you Do, Damned if You Don’t
The Finance Minister had to present this year’s Budget in the background of slow global recovery, poor agricultural growth and increasing domestic prices. Although Indian economy is clearly on the path of recovery, complete withdrawal of the stimulus is premature, but excessive government borrowing could put pressure on interest rates and hurt [...]
Shooting Straight
From a 34 per cent increase in defence outlay for the 2009-10 fiscal year to a 3.98 per cent increase in the latest Budget, it has been a precipitous drop. But appearances can be misleading. Parsing the figures more closely aside - taking revised estimates for last year's defence allocation into account, the jump in capital outlay, meant for [...]
Bhupesh Bhandari: When innovation acquires new meaning
We often associate innovation with a product or a process. Some tinkering with a product or service, or some modification in a process here and there is what we like to call innovation. This is the most commonly understood form of innovation. In the fast-moving times that we live in, this isn’t enough. In the broader sense, innovation has come [...]
Yashwant Sinha: Neither good economics, nor politics
Unprecedented events have taken place in Parliament over the last two days. The first was a discussion on price rise even before a discussion on the motion of thanks for the President’s address was taken up. The second was the finance minister intervening in that debate and putting forth his views on price rise a day before he was due to present [...]
The reformer’s balancesheet
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had many objectives to juggle in this Budget. On the one hand, the government’s expansion of spending that followed on from the global financial crisis had put pressure on its bottomline, and across India and the world stakeholders hoped that the Budget would mark a return to fiscal prudence. On the other hand, [...]
The soil for change
Finally, they have bitten the bullet on fertiliser subsidy. For the past three years, the Union government has agonised on the issue of mounting expenditure on this account and has not had the courage to cut the subsidy. While Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced his intent to introduce a nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) in his last Budget [...]
For serious Fertiliser reform
We commend the Centre’s decision to free prices of non-urea fertilisers and fix subsidy on these based on their nutrient content from April this year. The calibrated reform would give fertiliser companies the freedom to set farmgate prices of fertilisers other than urea, allow them to offer innovative nutrient combinations, improve the [...]