-PTI New Delhi: The harvest-ready kharif crops of this year are in good condition and have not been affected by recent heavy rains in some parts of the country, Agriculture Secretary Shobhana K Pattanayak said today. The minor losses due to rains in the isolated pockets was factored in during the first projection made last month with respect to total kharif (summer) foodgrains output for the 2017-18 crop year (July-June), he said. According...

-The Hindu Business Line AIBOC questions legality of mandating UID linking of accounts Coimbatore: The All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) wants Aadhaar seeding of accounts put on hold till the Supreme Court comes out with a clear directive. “The government should make it clear to the people that the seeding of Aadhaar is voluntary and not mandatory,” said D Thomas Franco, General Secretary, AIBOC. He said the Aadhaar Act of 2016 was meant...

-Scroll.in The food safety authority looked away as the environment ministry kept clearing consignments of genetically modified soyabean and canola oils from abroad. Violating laws governing food safety in India, the central government has over the last five years allowed more than 15 million tonnes of genetically modified soyabean and canola oils to be imported into the country for human consumption. That such imports were illegal came to light with the Food...

-The Indian Express Vasundhara Raje government will present The Code of Criminal Procedure (Rajasthan Amendment) Bill to replace the ordinance during this Assembly session. The Editors Guild of India has expressed “deep concern” about the Rajasthan Government’s decision to make the Criminal Laws (Rajasthan Amendment) Ordinance 2017 into an Act in the current legislative session. “(It) was ostensibly done to protect the judiciary and the bureaucracy against false FIRs. But in reality it...

-Scroll.in The recent starvation death in Simdega epitomises a much larger problem of Aadhaar-related exclusion from the public distribution system in Jharkhand. The recent death of 11-year old Santoshi Kumari in Simdega district of Jharkhand has rightly stirred the country’s conscience. The context of this tragedy, however, is poorly understood, not least because of the Jharkhand government’s obfuscation. According to the family’s video testimonies, Santoshi died after starving for eight days. Even...