-The Hindu Business Line Short tenure of the policy is its biggest drawback. With El Nino expected to mar the monsoon this year, insurers may stay away A normal monsoon in 2016, after two years of drought, has not only led to a bountiful harvest for farmers, but also filled the coffers of private insurers. The Kharif 2016 season resulting in lower claims has helped private insurers in particular rake in good profits...

-Hindustan Times Dhanaura (Bulandshahr): Every Wednesday, until two weeks ago, farmers from Dhanaura, adjoining villages and beyond would sell at least 500 spent (no longer productive) buffaloes to meat traders at this licenced weekly market in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr, about 80 km from Delhi. Not anymore. On March 29, the second Wednesday since the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government launched its crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses, it was not business as usual at...

-PRS Legislative Research The key findings of the report entitled: State of Agriculture in India by Tanvi Deshpande (March, 2017) are as follows: * The agriculture sector employs nearly half of the workforce in the country.  However, it contributes to 17.5% of the GDP (at current prices in 2015-16). * Over the past few decades, the manufacturing and services sectors have increasingly contributed to the growth of the economy, while the agriculture sector’s...

-The Indian Express Census data of 2011 shows a 17.74 per cent increase in worker population since 2001, indicating a crucial shift from farms as productivity fell. Thiruvarur: B CHANDIRAN is the only male member below the age of 50 in Dalit-dominated Oradiymbalam Jeeva Nagar village in Nagapattinam district. Hunted by loan sharks, the other men in this village of over 60 families have left, and are now doing menial jobs...

-Livemint.com The International Water Day serves as an annual reminder of the mess in management of water resources In an intriguing order on 20 March, the Uttarakhand High Court has recognized the rivers Ganges and Yamuna as a living entity, which means that anybody found polluting the river would be seen as harming a human being. It remains to be seen what impact the order has but the order does reflect a...