-The Indian Express Curbing stubble burning is about inducing behavioural changes in farmers. Given that crop residue burning has an environmental footprint and poses health hazards, one needs to be cautious while evaluating the Centre’s policy to mitigate the crisis. But there is also an urgent need for such an evaluation. The Centre has allocated Rs 1,050 crore to the states where crop residue burning poses a pollution hazard. The Union Ministry...

-The Economic Times New Delhi: The government is planning to rope in domain experts from within and outside the country to ensure a smooth rollout and monitoring of ‘Ayushman Bharat’, its ambitious health insurance scheme for the poor. Niti Aayog, the government’s premier think tank, will come out with guidelines for setting up the project monitoring unit (PMU) for Ayushman Bharat, also known as National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS), an official told...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government's spending on the rural job scheme increased 10 per cent in the last fiscal despite a matching decline in the number of beneficiaries because of deletion, challenging claims that weeding out bogus card-holders helped cut down on expenditure and pointing to the lack of jobs in rural areas. After verification, the government struck off the names of 1.62 crore job card-holders under the Mahatma Gandhi National...

-The Economic Times PUNE: Chana farmers stand to lose Rs 6,170 crore as they have not received the government assured minimum support price (MSP) for a good chunk of their crop, according to the ‘loot calculator’ of Jai Kisan Andolan (JKA), a movement which works for farmers’ rights. The Andolan, launched by Yogendra Yadav founded Swaraj Abhiyan, has gleaned this crop of data based on an expected production of 1,110 lakh quintals...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: After a successful Bharat Bandh against the Supreme Court judgement on the SC/ST Act, the government is worried about losing the perception battle to rival political parties on being pro-Dalit. While the suggestion for issuing an Ordinance-if needed to counter an adverse SC verdict on the review petitioncame from the Prime Minister’s Office, some cabinet ministers are of the view that issues like reservation in promotion and...