-The Hindu Business Line Agriculture Ministry reviews soil health card scheme New Delhi: Central teams will be sent to Uttar Pradesh and Odisha to assess drought situation, the Agriculture Ministry said on Tuesday. The Ministry said it had received representations from the two States and teams were being dispatched immediately. Karnataka was recently sanctioned ₹1,540 crore. For Chhattisgarh, the Ministry has recommended ₹1,387 crore. At present, Central teams are visiting Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, a...

-The Hindu The launch of the inactivated polio vaccine injection marks a shift in addressing vaccine derived poliovirus cases. After nearly five polio-free years, and with the launch of the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) injection in the national immunisation programme tomorrow (November 30), India will be pushing for “endgame polio”. The injectable vaccine, which uses killed polio viruses, will be used alongside the oral polio vaccine (OPV). For now, immunisation using IPV will be...

-Business Standard Most homes not getting enough to eat; resorting to sending children for work, distress sale of any cattle; call for comprehensive relief without delay A little more than a third of the 100-odd drought-hit villages in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh have recorded at least one death due to hunger or malnutrition in the past eight months. And, about two-thirds of households often did not get two square meals in...

Agricultural insurance is supposed to protect farmers from financial hardships and risks when crop losses and damage takes place due to extreme weather events such as drought, cyclone, hailstorms, flood etc. However, in reality this does not hold true in India. Due to the failure of crop insurance schemes in India, there has been a deepening of agrarian crisis and rural distress in the recent times, particularly in the backdrop of...

-The Hindu Business Line A creeping crisis in soyabean in Madhya Pradesh has given rise to this contradiction. Different policies are called for The Indian policymaker seems to suffer from the musk deer syndrome. The musk deer is a rare species that produces musk in its own body. But it does not realise this and searches endlessly for the source of the aroma. India faces a similar dilemma. On the one hand, the...