Against the backdrop of the Finance Minister Shri Piyush Goyal announcing the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PMKSN) programme during his budget speech on 1st February, 2019, it becomes essential to differentiate between 12.56 crore operational holding households (enumerated, as per the Agriculture Census) and 13.33 crore ownership holding households (estimated, as per the 70th round National Sample Survey report no. 571) pertaining to size upto 2 hectares. In his budget...

-The Indian Express 28.2 per cent surveyed households did not buy refills even once, 37.4 per cent families bought refill second time, says study. Ahmedabad: Shardaben Mansinh, a resident of Mekhar Morva village in Panchmahal district, was a BPL cardholder. However, after she was allotted a LPG connection under Prime Minister’s Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in June 2016, she was denied subsidised kerosene by the local PDS shop. On inquiry, she was...

-Firstpost.com The year is due to end, and the report card for India's flagship financial inclusion programme, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana for 2018 is out. Before diving into the specifics of the programme, it would be useful to remember that the year has been revelatory with regard to women's issues, from the #MeToo movement to the 217 years that it will apparently take to close the gender pay gap. In...

-The Hindu Lacking personnel, funds and motivation, the thana is not structured to enforce the rule of law The death of inspector Subodh Kumar Singh, shot while trying to control a mob of cow vigilantes in Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh, is a vivid expression of the contempt of our ruling classes, and those aligned to them, for the rule of law. The increasing number of human sacrifices for the alleged protection...

-The Hindu Braving Maoist call for boycott, villagers exercise franchise Karimnagar (Tenlangana): In spite of heightened naxalite threat, villagers, mostly dominated by tribal communities, have set an example in Telangana by recording over 90% polling in the Maoist stronghold villages in the interior Mahadevpur, Kataram and Mahamutharam mandals adjoining the Chhattisgarh in the erstwhile Karimnagar district, now in Jayashankar-Bhupalapalli district. Braving the Maoist call for poll boycott, people formed serpentine queues to exercise...