The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs today approved the expansion of the ongoing Centrally Sponsored Scheme ‘Livestock Health and Disease Control’ by adding four new components and enlarging the scope of the existing Foot and Mouth Disease Control Programme from 54 Districts to 221 districts. The new components to be added are: (i) National Animal Disease Reporting System (ii) National Control Programme on Peste des Petits Ruminants, (iii) National Control Programme on Brucellosis and (iv) Establishment and...

Trouble erupted at Jikarpur, near Aligarh, on Saturday night after rumours spread that a farmer leader had been arrested near the village. Police opened fire to disperse the violent protesters and bring the situation under control, said SSP (Aligarh) Vijay Prakash, who was transferred on Sunday. B.D. Palson, SSP of Mathura, which too was hit by the violence, was also shifted. Two persons and a PAC jawan were killed and nine injured in...

One of the most intriguing features of India's agrarian economy in recent years is the persistence of agrarian distress in many regions, even while agricultural credit flow has risen sharply. Rising flow of credit to agriculture is normally associated with buoyancy in the farm sector. A closer look at the data on agricultural credit reveals that what is termed agricultural credit may have very little to do with agriculture, the...

Bihar has a refreshing new motif: girls in uniform on shiny new cycles, confident and assured, simply because they go to school. A little over three years ago, the Bihar government launched the Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana—the chief minister’s cycle scheme for girls. The plan entitled girls in class IX and X to a free cycle from the state or Rs2,000 to buy one—mirroring a scheme started by Tamil Nadu, but...

All 12,800 villages of Punjab are set to get all 14 citizen services under one roof from December this year, with the Rs 91-crore prestigious programme of 3017 e-gram at each Panchayat cluster becoming functional. After going through the presentation by Joint Secretary of Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayat DK Jain as well as the experience cited by service providers and multinational IT companies contending for this prestigious job, Deputy...