-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Seeking to protect farmers from price volatility by ensuring guaranteed price for their produce, the Centre will come out with a draft model law on contract farming this month. Once it is made public, stakeholders including farmers will be given 30 days to comment and give suggestions. A final 'model' contract farming Act is expected to be released in November after incorporating the suggestions. "The final model...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The CBI on Saturday registered a corruption case against former Union environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan+ and raided her premises in Chennai in connection with clearance given during her tenure for diversion of forest land for mining in alleged violation of laws. The CBI alleged that Natarajan, as the environment minister during UPA rule+ , abused her official position while giving clearances to Electosteel Casting Limited, a...

-The Times of India IMPHAL: It is hard to believe that the state, mostly in the news for reports of armed conflicts, has been achieving the country's lowest infant mortality rate (IMR) consecutively for the last three years — standing tall amidst other conventionally well-equipped states. According to the health ministry report, Manipur's IMR stands at nine deaths per 1000 live births. The national IMR, according to the latest available data,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Indian Women's Press Corps (IWPC) and the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) have strongly condemned the murder earlier this week of Bengaluru journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh. IWPC also expressed grave concern at the language used in a Facebook post threatening violence against Delhi journalist Sagarika Ghose. A day after Lankesh's killing, an individual, going by the name of VikramAditya Rana, allegedly circulated a Facebook post calling...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetization on November 8, 2016, of his stated intentions for the move was to attack counterfeit notes. However, the rate of seizures of fake currency notes across the country has remained the same, even after Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were declared illegal. The model state of Gujarat had the most seizures of Rs 2,000 notes after demonetization, figures...