After sitting on the proposal for four years, the Planning Commission has approved the union agriculture ministry’s modified national agricultural insurance scheme. More than half a dozen different models of Farm Insurance have been tried out since the early 1970s but without much success. None of these schemes has been economically viable. We now have one more experiment being launched. No more than a fraction of the country’s over 120...

In a big embarrassment to the Centre and Delhi government ahead of the Commonwealth Games, a committee appointed by the Delhi High Court has said that workers at Games-related construction sites were not being paid minimum wages and were being made to work overtime for no extra money. The four-member committee was set up to inquire into allegations levelled in a PIL which said conditions of workers at construction sites...

The economist and political commentator who was appointed to a four-member team of the UN to recommend reforms to the global financial system critiques Budget 2010 Economist and political commentator Prabhat Patnaik, currently vice-chair of the Kerala Planning Board, is a strong critic of the government’s economic policies. In 2008, Patnaik, who has taught at JNU since the 1970s, was appointed to a four-member team of the UN to recommend...

Failure of kharif crop and mounting debts stated to be reasons  The interest rate on private loans ranges between 24 and 36 per cent The district witnessed 15 deaths in 3 days during November Sixty-nine farmers from Adilabad district committed suicide during the kharif season that lasted from August to November 2009 and the number grew to 93 by December 15, if reports from the non-governmental organisations and farmers’ associations in Andhra...

The historic city of Bhagalpur in Bihar, often in the news for the wrong reasons, figured in the Lok Sabha on Thursday when Bharatiya Janata Party member Shahnawaz Hussain sought to draw the government's attention to the pitiable condition of weavers there. “The jacket you are wearing is made of Bhagalpur silk,” he told Deputy Speaker Karia Munda, who was in the Chair, even as he pointed towards Leader of the...