-Livemint.com
Politicians prefer a short-term response over a more nuanced, structural solution to the problem of rural distress
Confirming everyone’s worst fears, last week the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecast a deficient monsoon this year.
The next day, some of the newspapers wrongly reported it as a drought (guess breathless reporting is no longer a preserve of the electronic media), adding to the disappointment of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) refusal to play to the gallery.
Fearing a setback to sentiment, finance minister Arun Jaitley hastily convened a media briefing to try and quell fears of another drought—last year, too, was a drought, and a back-to-back occurrence is extremely rare.
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