-Business Standard Farmers are not getting enough protection as states mostly do not pay the premium they should With the rains falling in abundance and tomatoes refusing to do so, agriculture economy experts have a lot to say on what both mean for the sector.   Both pose a risk to farmers — of floods and of lack of pricing power. Yet the farmers don't have much to fend those off since agricultural insurance...

-The Indian Express For farmers, a uniform 2 per cent premium rate on sum insured (SI) for all kharif or monsoon season foodgrains and oilseeds, while 1.5 per cent for rabi winter crops and 5 per cent for annual commercial and horticultural crops, is the lowest they can hope for. The country couldn’t possibly have, at least on paper, a better agricultural crop insurance scheme than the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima...

-Outlook Banks are fleecing customers to shore up their profits and offset the dead weight of bad loans to corporates When the GST era dawned this month, online jokesters quipped that it was the most inscrutable thing ­after Duckworth Lewis. But paradoxically, it may have brought a disquieting clarity to another zone of universal experience. Amid the flurry of news reports detailing what would entail a higher tax of 18 per cent,...

-Centre for Science and Environment New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released here today the first detailed independent evaluation and analysis of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) – government’s flagship national agricultural insurance programme. Across the world, agriculture insurance is recognised as an important part of the safety net for farmers to deal with the impacts of extreme and unseasonal weather due to climate change. Releasing the report...

-Scroll.in Terms of agreement give private players 30-year lease over parts of government district hospitals. Niti Aayog and the Union ministry for health and family welfare have proposed a model contract to increase the role of private hospitals in treating non-communicable diseases in urban India. The agreement, which has been been shared with states for their comments, allows private hospitals to bid for 30-year leases over parts of district hospital buildings...