-Deccan Chronicle Hyderabad: The undue delay in remitting the first installment of loan waiver amount to banks by the Telangana state government has resulted in farmers across the state losing crop insurance benefit for the ongoing kharif season. Reports from Telangana districts confirm that the government did not remit the amount that was promised by it to banks by September 30, the last day for the banks to make adjustments of...

-IANS Leh: For Tsetan Punchok, a 50-something farmer from the distant village of Partapur in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, life was difficult in the 3,000-metre highlands where summer lasts barely four months and for long, he could only grow potatoes and turnips. His life, however, changed in the last few years when he came in touch with scientists of the Defence Institute of High Altitude Research (DIHAR). DIHAR, a laboratory of premier...

-The Telegraph Kolkata: The Bengal government's decision to select insurance companies quoting the lowest premiums for a centrally funded health care scheme has hit private hospitals that are refusing patients citing non-payment of claims by the firms. Senior officials of the health department said thousands of poor patients registered under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana were being refused admission by hospitals and nursing homes across the state every month. The registered families...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The monsoon that set in on India late this year is making a delayed retreat as well. Rains towards the fag end of the season are good for standing crops and will hold soil moisture for winter crops, but may hurt crops which are ready for harvest, particularly paddy and cotton in some areas. According to the government's meteorology department officials, there are no signs of...

-The United Nations A new United Nations-backed report launched today reveals that 22 million people worldwide were displaced in 2013 by disasters sparked largely by earthquakes or climate- and Weather-related events - almost three times more than by conflict in the same year. The report, Global Estimates 2014: people displaced by disasters, conducted by the Norwegian Refugee Council's Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), shows that the risk of displacement due to disasters...