-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation The Government today announced an overarching scheme for uplift of urban and rural poor through enhancement of livelihood opportunities through skill development and other means. The scheme has been named as ‘Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana - DAY'. The announcement was made today by Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu, Minister of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation and Shri Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Rural Development...

-The Business Standard WTO reconvenes to re-examine issue of agriculture subsidies, numbers alone suggest that India has a strong case for declining to sign WTO's TFA The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is reconvening in the last week of September to examine the issue of agricultural subsidies against the backdrop of India's refusal to become a signatory to the trade facilitation agreement (TFA) at Bali. Since then, a lot of water has flowed...

-The Financial Express A mechanism is needed to compensate farmers for not exercising their right to sell productive land but continue to grow foodgrains. India finds itself in a piquant situation. While its population, and with it the number of poor, is growing, its cultivable land is not only shrinking, more worryingly, the economic returns of the agricultural use are diminishing vis-a-vis non-agricultural use. The situation may not be alarming right now,...

-Down to Earth Modi government plans to revive cash benefit transfer scheme of previous government Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious financial inclusion programme-the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMGDY)-was launched on August 28 this year there have been misgivings over the haste shown by the government to open banks accounts to cover all rural households. Now a statement of a senior government official in the finance ministry shows the pitfalls...

-The Hindustan Times To check rising public expenditure, the government's two biggest money-spender schemes - subsidised ration for poor and job guarantee in rural areas - will soon be on the Aadhaar-enabled Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) platform. The disbursal of Subsidy for cooking gas cylinders will come back on the DBT platform after the previous UPA government decided to put it on the hold just before general elections. The UPA, which started transfer...