-Business Standard The first two years of the Narendra Modi government were marked by big announcements that will take their time to materialise. The one sector that is unfazed by slogans is agriculture. The sector is crippled by back-to-back droughts coupled with a record fall in farm prices. A slump in global markets meant that agriculture exports, which could provide farmers alternative revenue, dried up. Agriculture and processed food exports from India...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: Arunachal Pradesh has the highest number of liver cancer patients in the country and the second highest stomach cancer cases in the world after China, a nationwide cancer-tracking programme conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research has found. The latest report on the country's cancer scene, based on data available with the council's population-based cancer registries (PBCR), also shows that Aizawl in Mizoram has the highest incidence of...

-The Hindu In a much-needed measure to keep the consumption of chewing tobacco under check, the Delhi government has extended by a year the ban on the sale, purchase and storage of all forms of chewable tobacco — scented, flavoured and mixed — sold in forms such as gutka, pan masala, khaini and zarda. The extension of the ban has come after the previous notification expired recently. In 2012, a few...

-Livemint.com Karin Hulshof says from being primarily funded by govts of the developed world, Unicef in India is now increasingly funded by private companies Devolution of higher funds to states in India is leading to decentralisation of programmes undertaken by the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef), said Karin Hulshof, Unicef’s regional director for South Asia, during a three-day visit to Odisha. The agency is engaging more with state governments than...

-TheCitizen.in NEW DELHI: Clean India "Swachh Bharat Mission" (SBM) is a national campaign by the Government of India, covering 4,041 statutory cities and towns, to clean the streets, roads and infrastructure of the country. The campaign was officially launched on October 2, 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself cleaned the road. It is projected as India's biggest ever cleanliness drive and 3 million government employees including school...