-Scroll.in The state’s expenditure on agriculture and irrigation has fallen since 2013-’14. In the run-up to the Gujarat assembly elections, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on October 16 announced that his government would offer interest free-loans to farmers who borrow up to Rs 3 lakh and pay the amount back on time. Many Opposition politics criticised this as a populist measure, aimed at garnering votes for Rupani’s Bharatiya Janata Party. Reducing the interest...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Two information officers who helped make public RTI documents on land allotment to Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Ayurveda in March this year, were transferred less than a fortnight later, raising questions on whether the officials were penalised for their actions. On March 8, TOI had reported on the shunting of IAS officer Bijay Kumar from the finance department shortly after he questioned the basis of a 75% discount...

-Scroll.in Supreme Court guidelines have made it clear beneficiaries cannot be denied access to welfare schemes even if they don’t have Aadhaar, activists say. An 11-year-old girl in Jharkhand’s Simdega district has died of starvation last fortnight, months after her family’s ration card was cancelled because it was not linked to their Aadhaar number, say Right to Food Campaign activists. With no school mid-day meals available during her Durga Puja holidays,...

-Down to Earth Since April 2014, the rate of work completion has been declining at rapid pace, indicating that crucial assets for villages are not getting created In the last three and half years, the rate of work completion under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has drastically declined, leading to wastage of public money and leaving villages more prone to drought. This could also be a reason...

-Scroll.in Notified in September, the rules will facilitate the development of wetlands as real estate, industrial sites and garbage dump After ignoring repeated directions from the Supreme Court to notify stricter rules to protect the country’s wetlands, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has gone and done just the opposite. On September 26, it published the Wetlands (Conservation & Management) Rules, 2017 – replacing the older rules dating back to...