FMC-SEBI to merge

The government proposed the merger of commodity futures market regulator Forward Markets Commission (FMC) with stock market watchdog Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), a move intended to strengthen regulation of the 11-year commodities market, facilitate domestic and foreign institutional participation and launch of new products like options.
The merger of FMC with Sebi will strengthen regulation of commodity forward markets and reduce wild speculation, said finance minister Arun Jaitley, in his Budget speech.
The entire transition, to be overseen by an officer on special duty appointed by the government, will take place over the next six months to one year. Initially, the FCRA (Forward Contracts Regulation Act) would be repealed and the definition of securities under the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act and the Sebi Act would be amended to include commodity derivatives.
All the employees of FMC -excluding its members -would be either transferred to the central government or Sebi.

Kisan TV

A dedicated television channel for farmers, Kisan TV , will be launched on the occasion of Baisakhi, which marks the start of the harvest season in Punjab and neighbouring states, in April. The government announced the launch date of this channel in its 2015-16 budget papers, tabled in Parliament on Saturday . “Soft launch of the channel is proposed from March 23 and firm launch is expected on April 13-14,“ it said.
The channel, dedicated to agriculture and allied sectors, will disseminate realtime inputs to farmers on new farming techniques, water conservation and organic farming among other information.
The Narendra Modi government had proposed such a channel on Doordarshan (DD) in its last budget in July last year, and had earmarked Rs.100 crore for it. Finance minister Arun Jaitley , who is also minister for information and broadcasting, provided Rs.45 crore as “grants-in-aid“ to Prasar Bharati ­ the country's public service broadcaster -for the `Kisan' channel in this year's budget.
Earlier, the I&B ministry had crowd-sourced ideas on the contours and content of Kisan TV which will be one of the key 24-hour channels in DD's kitty .
Quiz shows for farmers, sharing best farm practices in different parts of the country, a bottoms-up approach involving agriculturists, inviting programming suggestions from general public and real-time interaction with experts and farm scientists were some of the ideas that came up in the process.
Prasar Bharati currently runs `Krishi Darshan' programme on DD1. It is one of the longest running programmes on DD. It was launched on January 26, 1967.

Bengal's Budget snapshot

Of Andhra's new Capital....

The AP government has successfully collected consent letters to take over 32,000 acres of farm land to build the new capital city on the right bank of river Krishna. It now plans to speed up the works and complete the first phase of the project by June 7, 2018.
Though the deadline for the land pooling scheme concluded on Saturday night, officials accepted consent letters from farmers on Sunday too. Municipal administration minister P Narayana claimed the government has pooled 32,100 acres and that the government will not accept any more consent forms.
Even the riverbank farmers, who were reluctant to part with their fertile land, came forward in huge numbers to participate in the scheme. Farmers of Rayapudi, who had been resisting the alleged pressure tactics of the officials for a long time, gave up in the eleventh hour.
However, farmers in Undavalli, Penumaka, Nidamarru, Yerrabalem and Bethapudi villages did not participate in the scheme. Overall, sources said officials failed to secure consent for about 500 acres in Rayapudi, 1,000 acres each in Penumaka and Undavalli, and 1,500 acres in Nidamarru, Bethapudi and Yerrabalem villages.
“Farmers did not willingly participate in the scheme. They were under constant pressure from politicians and officials,“ said farmers' leader Mallela Seshagiri Rao. He, however, warned the government that the farmers will still approach court against the scheme.

Financial Commission Report snippets

Contrary to widespread impression that the states have gained massively from the higher transfer of central funds on acceptance of the Finance Commission report, an analysis of budget numbers suggests their gains may be little, even non-existent.
While transfers of central taxes to states will go up sharply in 2015-16, other funds will be slashed while state spending on some schemes will rise. Besides, the Centre will spend less on many schemes and states will have to take up the slack.So, their expenditure will rise too.

Rare storm drenches India

An unusually potent storm system lashed India over the weekend, bringing copious rain across a large swathe of the country , from J&K to Karnataka, in what Met officials described as a rare occurrence for this time of the year.
The system is expected to blow over by Tuesday morning, but not before it drenches most of north and central India, as well as parts of the south, and dumps a few feet of fresh snow in the Himalayas.
“There was intermittent, heavy rainfall across large parts of the country on Sunday . Such widespread rain at this time of the year is not very common. The wet weather in north and central India will continue for at least another day ,“ said B P Yadav , director, India Meteorological Department. Between 8.30 am and 5.30 pm, around 40 mm of rain was recorded in Kanpur (UP), Katra (J-K) and Bhavnagar (Gujarat) while Delhi (Ridge), Pachmarhi (MP) and Ratnagiri saw close to 30 mm.

It has been raining woes for farmers since Saturday night as a rare confluence of weather systems drenched large parts of the country , flattening standing crops at many places and damaging vegetable fields. The matter was raised in Lok Sabha on Monday , with members seeking special packages for farmers as reports of crop damage came in from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, MP , Maharasthra, UP and Uttarakhand, among others.
As unseasonal heavy rainfall accompanied by strong winds lashed most parts of Punjab and Haryana on Sunday , farmers suffered damage to wheat crops at a few pockets of Sirsa, Ambala and Karnal (in Haryana), as well as Bathinda, Muktsar and Amritsar in Punjab. Sugarcane and vegetables too suffered.
The showers took a heavy toll on crops across Uttar Pradesh. Wheat was hit in east UP while potatoes and tomatoes got damaged in central-west districts. Mango growers in Malihabad, too, complained that the downpour had damaged 10%-15% of the crop. Be sides, they feared an outbreak of a fungus infection due to the untimely rains and the sudden drop in temperature.
Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has sought a survey of the damages for fixing compensation to farmers.
Reports from east UP districts like Varanasi and Gorakhpur said the standing wheat crop suffered over 50% loss while other crops including arhar, mustard, pea and gram were also hit.
The downpour in central India could hit the output of Madhya Pradesh's famous sharbati variety of wheat. The wetness may lead to the crop losing its S factor -shape, size and shine -said experts.
The unseasonal rains in Chhattisgarh not only threatened the young chick peas crop in about 4 lakh hectares but also the huge quantities of paddy stocked in the open, state government sources said.
In Maharashtra's Nashik district, which saw a massive downpour of 594.4mm on Saturday and 448.5mm on Sunday , preliminary estimates show 4,295 hectares of farmland of 4,910 farmers were affected.Across the region, grapes, pomegranates and other cash crops along with wheat, onion suffered damage.

Petrol, diesel prices go up

State-run fuel retailers raised petrol and diesel rates for the second time in a month as global crude prices rebounded and the rupee weakened against the Greenback.
In Mumbai, petrol price would rise by Rs 3.33 litre and diesel by Rs 3.41, including state levies, from Sunday . The increase would vary marginally in other states in accordance with variation in VAT.
Prices of petrol and diesel were last raised on February 16 ­ 82 paise and 61 paise a litre respectively to pass on the impact of rising crude prices.
Since then, petrol and diesel benchmark prices have risen further in international trading hubs and the rupee exchange rate also depreciated slightly to necessitate an increase in retail prices, the country's largest refiner-retailer IndianOil said in a statement.