-Livemint.com At a pre-budget consultation, farmers and agriculture economists call for steps to reduce input costs New Delhi: Farmers on Tuesday urged finance minister Arun Jaitley to statutorily ensure income security for them and simultaneously take steps to reduce input costs and thereby make farming profitable. The suggestions from the Consortium of Indian Farmers Associations (CIFA) and agriculture economists was made at the first of the pre-budget consultation. “The median agriculture income is...

-IANS It didn't take long for fake notes of 2,000 rupees to start circulating after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation in November 2016, with one of its stated aims being to kill counterfeit currency, official data show. According to the National Crime Records Bureau's (NCRB) latest report released on November 30, a total of 2,272 fake notes of Rs 2,000 denomination were seized in 2016. Since the Rs 2,000 note --...

-Livemint.com SIT probe report on deaths of 40 farmers in Vidarbha during July-September will be made public during Maharashtra assembly’s winter session starting on 11 December Mumbai: The report of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Maharashtra government to investigate the deaths of cotton farmers and farm workers in Vidarbha during July-September will be made public only during the upcoming wintersession of the state legislature beginning 11 December in Nagpur,...

-Livemint.com Uttar Pradesh recorded 14.5% of the total cases of crimes against women, it accounted for 12.4% of the total number of rape cases, shows NCRB data New Delhi: Led by Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the incidence of rape registered a sharp increase in India in 2016—part of a general spike in crimes against women, according to annual figures released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on Thursday. Rape cases shot...

-IANS NEW DELHI: As many as 19,732 projects as part of the village development plan under the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) have been completed and another 7,204 were under implementation, an official statement said on Tuesday. The objective of the programme is improving access to public services and community action for social and economic development in the selected gram panchayats so they become role models worth emulation by neighboring gram panchayats. "An...