-Hindustan Times With petroleum, electricity, alcohol and other products kept out of the purview of GST, the gains to GDP will not accrue in the same proportion as projected, he says. Claims that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will boost the country’s economic growth by 1.5 percentage points are “rubbish”, NITI Aayog member and economist Bibek Debroy said, hours before its roll out on midnight Friday. Debroy’s remarks contrast with finance minister...

-PTI Allahabad: Guests in Kanjasa may not have a cakewalk in selecting which birthday party to attend on January 1. One in five persons will be blowing out candles the same day, thanks to a technical goof-up that has caused their new Aadhaar cards to mention January 1 as their official date of birth. Flooded with complaints from residents of the village near Allahabad that their cards do not mention the actual dates...

-Livemint.com According to NCDEX, over 25,000 small and marginal farmers from 13 FPOs have successfully hedged their crops on its trading platform in the past 10 months New Delhi: In a bumper crop year when farmers across the country have been battered by lower crop prices, farmers’ groups are using futures contracts to hedge against price dips during the harvest season. For instance, Samriddhi Mahila Crop Production Co. Ltd, a farmer-producer organization (FPO)...

-The Tribune Demonetisation didn’t overly impact the sector, but devitalisation is a concern THERE has been a lot of Speculation about the extent of damage due to demonetisation on agriculture. Small farmers suffered most because cash in hand means a lot to them. They were unable to pay for inputs like fertilisers, seeds and farm labour and experienced low demand for their perishable produce. The latest data from government’s agricultural ministry however...

-The Telegraph Calcutta: The Bengal budget has proposed a grant of Rs 50,000 each to 50,000 migrant workers who were forced to return from other states because of demonetisation. By announcing the first such scheme in the country, the Mamata Banerjee government has beaten to the draw the Narendra Modi dispensation. Speculation had swirled around the Modi government that it might share the "gains of demonetisation" with the people through direct deposits...