The benchmark indices BSE Sensex and Nifty plunged on Monday by 537.55 points and 171.90 points in a fraught start to the New Year. Call it China effect, or West Asia ripple effect, or impact of crude oil price escalation or the combined impact of all these variables, there is no denying that the leisurely pace of economic reforms has decelerated the sentiment and pace of the economy. And it's also reflected in the slowest manufacturing growth in December domestic output in the last 28 months. Monday's stock market crash could pass off as a one-day shock or could accelerate on fundamental weaknesses of the economy. For far too long, the market has ignored the reality and its sentiments were boosted by doses of temporary euphoria delivered through half-baked recipes for reviving the economy. Of course, Chinese stocks' influence on global markets has increased after the China's $5 trillion equity market rout, when the Shanghai composite index crashed by more than 40 percent from mid-June 2015 through its August low. That rattled investor confidence in the world's second-largest economy and induced volatility world wide. So today's fall could be explained as one more day in the life of Indian stock markets when it felt depressed by the ripple effect of development in China's markets. But what does the deceleration in domestic factory output and demand reflect? It's a clear signal that the deep economy - agriculture- is fast becoming sick, if it has not turned sick already. And so the demand from as much as 60 per cent of the country's population, dependent on agriculture and allied activities, has decelerated in the past one year. And it's taking its toll: BJP has been on a losing spree in state after state and lost as much as 75 per cent of panchayat seats in its stronghold of Gujarat. As political consequences of unwise negligence towards the plight of farmers and peasants become unbearable, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a meeting with his officials on the new-year eve, called for initiating 'transformative changes' in the system of governance. He also reportedly called for focusing on implementing government schemes. It's not clear what transformative changes NaMo has in mind for agriculture. He and his party rose to power on a simple promise of raising farm profitability to 50 per cent above the cost, when they were hovering around 5-10 per cent (some estimates put it as high as 20-30 per cent) in most crops all over the country. In the true tradition of Indian politicians, Modi was quick on reneging on his promise to the farmers. So even the marginal profitability on all crops has turned negative. That's why he faces the taunt by Rahul Gandhi and others, advising him to curtail his foreign visit and show the courage to face farmers and peasants by visiting them. It's not that the government is unaware of the transformational changes it has to effect to fire up a demand-led growth. Last year, it received the report of its own Shanta Kumar panel on reforming food and fertilizer management of the country. But the report was neatly put in the book shelves of the PMO and the ministries concerned like finance, agriculture, food and fertilizer. So the net consequences are the following: FCI's arrears have crossed Rs 70,000 crores and unpaid bills to the fertilizer industry stands at Rs 40,000 crore. If one adds up these unpaid bills of Rs 1,10,000 crores to the budgetary allocation of Rs 2,00,000 crores for these subsidies, it gives you a sum of Rs3,10,000 crore. If this whopping amount is made explicit in the next budget, the fiscal deficit target set for FY16 would elude the government even in FY17. The more the government t