-Business Standard What is primarily required is political and administrative will for effective delivery of services Agantuk (The Stranger) was Satyajit Ray’s last film. The film revolves around the return of an old man, Manomohan Mitra, to India after 35 years. Manmohan had spent all his life with Adivasis from across the world and has a take on civilisation and progress that is at odds with the popular urban narrative of it....

-The Indian Express The protest march will reach ‘Jantar mantar’ in Delhi on July 18 and will focus on only two main issues — “total loan waiver for all farmers and providing one-and-half times more price of the total production cost of the crop”. Jalandhar: Despite Punjab government’s loan waiver announcement, four farmers’ organisations from Punjab have decided to participate in the national-level protest under the banner of Akhil Bhartiya Kisan Sangharsh...

-PTI New Delhi: Just a couple of hours before the Goods and Services Tax (GST) roll out, the all-powerful GST Council tonight reduced the tax rate on fertiliser to 5 per cent from previously decided 12 per cent. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who heads the GST Council comprising representatives of states, said the decision to reduce the tax rate on fertiliser was taken because of apprehensions that price of the crop nutrient...

-DNA Most of Europe avoided the fate of India, because of a very strict feudal law — that of following primogeniture, a system of inheritance by the firstborn (usually the first born son). Karnataka — preceded by UP, Punjab and Maharashtra — is the fourth state to have waived off loans taken by farmers. However, this is not going to be the end of the matter. You are likely to...

-Livemint.com Maharashtra’s capping of farm loan waiver will benefit farmers of drought-prone regions more than those in prosperous western, northern areas Mumbai: By capping the farm loan waiver at Rs1.5 lakh per farmer regardless of land holding, the Maharashtra government has ensured that farmers in the critically affected Marathwada and Vidarbha stand to gain more than those in the prosperous western and northern regions. Farm activists and at least one member of the...