Of course, farmers taxed

Textiles minister Anand Sharma may have scored a technical victory when, in response to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s mischievous statement about the government taxing cotton exports while subsidising meat exports, he said cotton exporters were not taxed and in fact got a 1% duty drawback while meat exporters got nothing. But if a ban on cotton exports is not a ‘tax’, and not just on exporters, what else is it? As one of the fastest-growth areas, cotton is very largely responsible for spurt in overall agriculture growth; and with 10% of agriculture GDP coming from exports, any move that puts a shadow over exports will tax the sector as a whole.

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