-Down to Earth Low returns and high risks from alternative crops among reasons past efforts failed, says report The Commission for Agricultural Cost and Prices (CACP) has recommended promotion of crop diversification, favouring oilseed crops amid the global inflation in oilseeds and vegetable oils prices. Global inflation creates a structural risk as vegetable oils account for about half of India’s agricultural import, subsequently raising the country’s agri-import bill, the commission wrote in its...

-Hindustan Times During the Covid pandemic-induced lockdown in early 2020, nearly 25,000 migrant workers reached Saharanpur on bicycles while heading back to their native places in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from their places of work in haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Meerut: The Saharanpur district administration has auctioned 5,400 bicycles left behind by migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar while rushing home during the nationwide lockdown in the wake of...

-Newsclick.in Since 2007, the central government has given a meagre Rs 7 to Rs 16 per day to the elderly. Some states have recently announced an increase in entitlements under the old-age pension scheme. For instance, Andhra Pradesh increased the old age pension amount by about Rs 250 to Rs 2500 per month at the beginning of 2022. More recently, the Uttar Pradesh government has announced an increase in the old-age pension...

-ThePrint.in The matter allegedly came to light when some of the accused were seen outside a Delhi hospital, offering money to homeless people. The hospital then informed the Hauz Khas police. New Delhi: The Delhi Police have busted a gang that was allegedly running a kidney transplant racket from haryana’s Sonipat, targeting poor and homeless people in the national capital. Ten people, including a doctor, have been arrested so far. The arrests were...

Every year in the month of either February or March, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) announces the notified MGNREGA wage rates (i.e., notified daily wage rates for MGNREGA workers) for various states and Union Territories (UTs) for the upcoming financial year. The MGNREGA rates are notified every year based on the increase in Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL). Like the previous years, in 2021 too, experts and civil...