-The Hindu Agriculture Insurance Company looks at technology-aided assessment methods Agriculture Insurance Company (AIC) of India Limited, the public sector organisation engaged in providing insurance cover for various crops, is in discussions with various commodity boards for exclusive crop-specific insurance schemes. A senior official of the Agriculture Insurance Company said that one of the goals of the company was to speed up settlement of insurance claims by farmers and the company was exploring...

-Down to Earth The focus of MGNREGA has, over time, shifted from employment creation to asset creation  The funds allocated in the Union budget 2021-22 for implementing schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) were exhausted within the first half of this financial year. The budgetary provision for 2021-22 was Rs 73,000 crore, of which Rs 79,810 crore has been spent. Many workers didn’t get paid; it may take...

-Hindustan Times A country’s unemployment rate can increase or decrease over time, and people can move from one form of employment to another. But headline numbers on unemployment rate and kind of employment do not tell us about the degree of churn in the labour market. One of the most basic concepts in economics is stock versus flow. Stock is a variable measured at a point in time. An individual’s net worth...

-The Hindu Informal workers continue to bear the brunt of pandemic’s adverse effects, says SBI report Signalling a greater shift towards formalisation of the economy, the share of the large informal sector in overall economic activity dipped sharply in 2020-21 even as informal workers continue to bear the brunt of the pandemic’s adverse effects, the SBI said in a research report. Concluding that the share of the informal economy may have shrunk to...

-TheWire.in In the dark about where their wards are jailed, family members of the three scholarship students, all from poor backgrounds, have pleaded with authorities to show lenience. Chadoora, Jammu and Kashmir: Forty-five-year-old Haneefa’s hands quiver as she begins speaking to journalists. Out of sorts and struggling with the weight of sudden tragedy, she pleads with the government. “He may have committed some mistake but I appeal to the government to please forgive...