-Livemint.com States, including Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Uttarakahand and West Bengal, saw a fall in percentage of men consuming alcohol New delhi: Tobacco use across all the states have dropped in the past 10 years but alcohol consumption in south Indian states along with Sikkim and Tripura in the northeast have increased, according to the initial findings of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) released on Tuesday. Increase in alcohol consumption...

-The Economic Times NEW delhi: The Narendra Modi government is setting out to achieve in the next two years what the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme could just about accomplish in the last 10. The rural development ministry is confident of adding 1 million farm ponds and wells and another million vermi composting farms under the programme. That's almost as much as the total such assets the scheme — put...

-The Hindu Crop insurance has always been a knotty issue with the two previous ones, National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NIAS) of 1999 and the Modified NAIS of 2010 failing to address the concerns. Hyderabad: Agriculture scientists, NGOs and farmer leaders have picked holes in the recently launched Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yojana (PMFBY) touted as the much-awaited ‘suraksha kavach’ (shield) and panacea for all crop insurance related ills. Crop insurance has always been...

-Livemint.com It’s time to look at the deleterious environmental impact of subsidies so as to attain correct pricing of resources A few days before delhi’s odd-even rule—a road rationing scheme in which odd- and even-numbered cars were allowed to ply on roads on alternate days—was to be implemented, delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia appeared on a television channel to answer questions on the rule. During the show, Sisodia admitted that the...

-The Indian Express The odd-even pilot reduced hourly particulate air pollution concentrations by 10-13 per cent. But for the longer run, a congestion-pricing programme may be better delhi’s ambitious odd-even pilot experiment to reduce the number of cars on the road, and pollution in the air, has come to an end — at least for now. But the question remains: Was it successful? Answering this question is challenging. Air pollution data is...