Terms of Trade | India needs a White Paper on agriculture
10 months, 1 week ago

Terms of Trade | India needs a White Paper on agriculture

Hindustan Times  

A thorough, and more importantly, serious debate on agriculture is absolutely essential for India’s future for two basic reasons. One, agriculture still employs almost half of India’s workforce even though it contributes just around 15% of India’s GDP. One, any effort to reduce agriculture’s employment share will have to be mindful of the fact that without any additional skill sets in the non-farm job market, existing farmers will not be able to land remunerative jobs outside agriculture. Two, any policy which seeks to increase agriculture’s income share in GDP by nudging it to shift to the production of high-value crops will have to be mindful of the fact that a very large part of India’s population does not have the purchasing power to buy such commodities: 800 million people in the country depend on free cereals from the Public Distribution System to meet their calorie requirements. With a focus on one big number and one big issue, he will go behind the headlines to ask a question and address political economy issues and social puzzles facing contemporary India.

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History of this topic

Terms of Trade | Turbulent geopolitics calls for serious economics
2 months, 2 weeks ago

Terms of Trade | Turbulent geopolitics calls for serious economics

Hindustan Times  

The ongoing conflict has claimed one of the highest civilian casualties in recent history. If the western world caught an inflation cold because of a war with Russia, it will definitely face economic turmoil in case there is a military conflict involving China, the world’s second-largest economy and the largest exporter. In fact, given India’s trade dependence on China, a …

Terms of Trade | The Opposition must revisit its economic approach if it wants to change the future
9 months, 2 weeks ago

Terms of Trade | The Opposition must revisit its economic approach if it wants to change the future

Hindustan Times  

This edition of Terms of Trade is perhaps the last one before the Election Commission of India announces the schedule for the 2024 general elections. While the BJP did face political headwinds in the immediate aftermath of its landslide 2014 victory after big defeats in the 2015 Delhi and Bihar assembly elections, it managed to regain the narrative after winning …

Terms of Trade | Is ‘Bharat’ the new Davos?
10 months, 2 weeks ago

Terms of Trade | Is ‘Bharat’ the new Davos?

Hindustan Times  

The last budget of the second Narendra Modi government and now a White Paper on the state of the economy strike a very unusual political economy note. India’s trajectory towards a neoliberal economy which is programmatically wedded to the idea of fiscal conservatism and unregulated markets has been completed while negotiating political roadblocks on the way. These three factors, when …

Terms of Trade | What ails competitive capitalism in India
1 year, 8 months ago

Terms of Trade | What ails competitive capitalism in India

Hindustan Times  

In a paper which is likely to create a big debate in India, New York University professor and former deputy governor of the RBI, Viral Acharya has argued that India needs to do five things to exploit its true economic potential. What this week’s column intends to do is take Acharya’s claims at face value and situate them in India’s …

Globalisation is dying; India needs sound industrial policy
2 years, 4 months ago

Globalisation is dying; India needs sound industrial policy

Live Mint  

The fairy tale of free market globalization, in which money, goods, and knowledge flow freely around the world unimpeded by national boundaries, which was spun into economics science in the past 40 years, has been exposed for what it was. Writers of the fairy tale of ‘free trade’ are mostly naïve economists who believe politics and power struggles—global as well …

Challenges for India’s agriculture exports
2 years, 7 months ago

Challenges for India’s agriculture exports

New Indian Express  

These questions have been asked as AoA imposes strict discipline on countries implementing domestic food security programmes using public stockholding of food grains, as for example, India’s public distribution system. Such countries are allowed to acquire and release food grains at administered prices, but they can only do so when they include the difference between the acquisition price of food …

This is India’s moment of reckoning
2 years, 8 months ago

This is India’s moment of reckoning

The Hindu  

I have been deeply saddened by recent global developments of conflict and violence in Ukraine. India’s trade is dependent on both these power blocs and on the current global economic structures of free trade, established reserve currency and transaction systems. While one may reasonably quibble about this new doctrine, India, as the largest peace-loving democracy, stands to gain enormously from …

Indian farmers fight reform laws, but changes could boost trade with Australia
3 years, 11 months ago

Indian farmers fight reform laws, but changes could boost trade with Australia

ABC  

While farmers in India fight three controversial free-market agriculture laws, some experts say Australia could benefit from the landmark legislation to reform India's massive farm sector. Key points: Farmers have marched on Delhi to demand laws reducing state support be rescinded An Australia-based academic says the laws are well overdue and will benefit farmers India's sugar export subsidies have already …

In agri-reforms, go back to the drawing board
4 years ago

In agri-reforms, go back to the drawing board

The Hindu  

The purpose of agriculture reforms is to increase farmers’ incomes. The problem of low incomes in India’s agriculture sector is a complex systems problem which cannot be solved by agriculture experts alone. Economists point, wistfully, to the firmness with which bold reforms were brought about in 1991, and how the government stood up to the ‘Bombay Club’ of industrialists who …

RBI Report Says Managing Food Surplus Key Challenge for India
4 years, 3 months ago

RBI Report Says Managing Food Surplus Key Challenge for India

News 18  

India has now reached a stage in which surplus foodgrain management has become a major challenge, the Reserve Bank of India said in its annual report on Tuesday. The total production of foodgrains reached a record 296.65 million tonnes in 2019-20, while total horticulture production — accounting for about 40 per cent of gross value added in the farm sector …

India’s farm sector needs help to get back on its feet. Here are 5 ideas | Opinion
4 years, 4 months ago

India’s farm sector needs help to get back on its feet. Here are 5 ideas | Opinion

Hindustan Times  

The agriculture sector is critical for India from a consistent growth and food security perspective as the sector and allied activities account for approximately 55% of India’s workforce and nearly 15% of India’s GDP. Soil health card-based nutrition enhancement programme Rampant use of urea, partly caused by Nutrient Based Subsidy, has led to worsening soil health, decline in crop response …

Opinion | The great scramble of millions to board India’s economic bus
4 years, 5 months ago

Opinion | The great scramble of millions to board India’s economic bus

Live Mint  

The covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the structural weaknesses of India’s economic model. India’s policymakers must devote much more attention to the building of India’s internal capabilities if Indians are to benefit from participation in global trade. Several economists—Dani Rodrik, Ricardo Hausmann, Ha Joon-Chang, and others—who have been advocating the need for sound industrial policies, to create more competitive enterprises and …

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