The government gives guaranteed return to private companies in its business dealings and considers their profit-motive good and desirable. Why the same doesn't hold true for farmers?

India's national agriculture policy is 20 years old and its response to farm crisis continues to be ad hoc, primarily focused on letting private players provide infrastructure and better remuneration to farmers who have consistently failed to deliver

The finance minister announced tax relief on select home sale deals, enhanced credit guarantee programme for small businesses and provided incentives for new job creation as the government widened stimulus measures to boost the economy

Reacting to the 7th major stimulus package after the coronavirus pandemic by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, ASSOCHAM president Niranjan Hiranandani said that it will further facilitate and incentivise job creation, and provide much relief and impetus to the housing and infrastructure sector

The Finance Minister has announced a Rs 65,000 crore fertilizer subsidy to enable timely availability of fertilisers in the upcoming crop season for farmers

Under Stimulus 3.0, FM Sitharaman announced a slew of fiscal measures including additional outlay for fertilisers subisidies, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and urban and rural employment schemes

Under the latest stimulus package, FM Sitharaman made 12 big announcements, and allocated funds and ensured credit guarantees to various sectors, including real estate, rural employment, Covid-19 vaccine research and Atma Nirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana

The devastating impact of coronavirus on the economy is becoming increasingly clear

This will be the second reduction in six months and will reduce rates to the lowest in two-and-half-years

Union Budget: Any additional spending announcement in Budget 2020 is unlikely, re-appropriation of budget to announce a few small but new populist schemes is possible

India is a zinc-deficient country. Given deficiency of this essential micronutrient, WHO has reported that about 800,000 deaths happen annually due to zinc deficiency, of which 450,000 are children under the age of five

In a pre-Budget meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman BKS chief Ajay Jhakar said their suggestions were aimed at augmenting resources and interventions that will lead to structural changes to improve livelihoods of rural communities

As per the information provided by 25 fertiliser companies, FAI said, a total of Rs 33,691 crore dues are pending as on November 1, 2019

On September 30, the government announced a 12.5 per cent reduction in domestic natural gas price to $3.23 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) from $3.69 per mmBtu

While the lower fiscal deficit target may come as a surprise, given the government had to resort to fiscal jugglery to arrive at the target of 3.4 per cent in the Interim Budget, there seems to be a twist in new numbers as well

The shift might be aimed at boosting farmers' income but there is no extra outgo for two crore additional beneficiaries

The budgetary estimate for the Agriculture Ministry for 2019-20 is 140 per cent higher than that for 2018-19 at Rs 57,600 crore, primarily due to Rs 75,000 crore allocation to PM-Kisan

The CMIE review said that investment demand is likely to be weak. The review also added that India achieved its fiscal deficit target for 2018-19 by reducing fiscal management to a \"numbers game\".