-PTI The upcoming Budget will be citizen-centric with a focus on farm SECtor, job creation and eradication of poverty, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said today. The upcoming Budget will be citizen-centric with a focus on farm SECtor, job creation and eradication of poverty, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said today. This will be the SECond full-fledged Budget of the ruling NDA government, and will be unveiled in Parliament...

-Livemint.com It has repeatedly failed to protect the domestic food SECurity agenda The cabinet’s approval of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) on Wednesday is, on the face of it, a relatively innocuous development. As WTO deals go, this is low-hanging fruit. The agreement is to reduce administrative barriers at ports and customs, reducing transactional costs of international trade and consequently—according to various studies—increasing global gross domestic product...

-The Hindu Business Line The scheme has made life easier for the people of this Andhra Pradesh village, one of the first in the state to have 100 per cent financial inclusion. But the local experience also throws up a few questions relevant nationally, reports Gunturi Naga Sridhar Fourty-year-old M Ravamma, from Polavaram, a village in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, had a nightmarish experience two months ago. Her husband complained...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Government scientists have released to industry a portable instrument that they say can detect within 45 SEConds some of the commonest contaminants used to adulterate milk in the country. Developed at the Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute in Pilani, Rajasthan, the instrument automatically scans milk samples for detergent, urea, soap, soda and salt without the need to employ technicians. Milk samples are now routinely tested through a range of...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The crisis in the country's farmland has taken out one of the biggest spenders of the economy from the demand-supply chain - farmers. The agrarian economy employs more than 50 per cent of the workforce and therefore, affects a large number of total consumers in the economy. Its conspicuous absence has resulted in weak aggregate earnings performance by India Inc, especially in the consumer durables, staples and auto...