A 'jai jawan, jai kisan' trap awaits Modi. In a 5-year Test match with revived Opposition

His political training and experience havent prepared him to run an arrangement like this..

If anything, it indicated a phase of the two sides being locked in a bitter tussle, like constant combatants with no flexibility, no back-channel and zero trust.. Of all of the political challenges for the new government, there is nothing stronger than what we might call the jai jawan/jai kisantrap..

It will be a disappointment, on the other hand, if the government now responds with more agri-populism: higher and wider MSP offers and loan waivers, while at the same time submitting to the swadeshiLuddite veto on biotechnology, especially GM seeds...

This weeks courageous report by the State Bank of Indias economic research division shows the way on agriculture.As this story by Yuthika Bhargava of ThePrint explains, The SBI underlines how the MSP approach works for too few farmers and accounts for no more than 6 percent of our farm output, and that the future lies in much bolder reform, a move to the markets and away from MSP, not the other way around...

This Modi government will need to address these massive challenges without the total power it got used to, under relentless attack, one session after another..

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