-The Times of India LUCKNOW: Union minister of state (independent charge) for petroleum Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday said the affluent accounted for only 3% of the over 1 crore people who had given up their LPG subsidy in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal. "The rest is constituted by the middle-class and lower income groups. Teachers, professionals and middle-level government employees have shown more interest as compared to HNIs (high-net...

-The Hindu The politics of patronage and personality in the State has reduced the electorate to passive recipients of welfare. “The food is good. The place is clean. Actually, I prefer the cleanliness over the menu,” P. Divaraj chuckles. “The real reason I’m here is because it’s the end of the month and I’m running out of money.” A 10-minute walk from his office to Amma Unavagam on Santhome High Road in...

-The Indian Express Substantial number of interest subvention scheme loans are diverted to non-agricultural uses. Government must switch to an income-support subsidy regime The Union budget for 2016-17 has provisioned Rs 15,000 crore on account of interest subvention for short-term agricultural credit, up by Rs 2,000 crore over the revised estimate for FY16. The mere shifting of this line item from the department of financial services to the department of agriculture...

-The Hindu Business Line India’s ambitious targets can be met without compromising the financials of discoms, as is feared India’s goal of having 100 GW of solar power by 2022 has already generated a lot of interest, and scepticism. But it’s even more far-reaching part pertains to the fact that 40 GW out of this is going to be based on distributed energy generation, namely solar rooftop systems. These solar rooftop systems could...

The budgetary support to interest subvention scheme has increased by almost 14 times between 2006-07 and 2016-17. However, the much-touted subsidised short-term credit scheme provides little help to the small and marginal farmers, apart from tenant farmers. According to the Committee on Medium-term Path on Financial Inclusion, which submitted its report in December 2015, the interest subvention scheme suffers from 3 types of defects: i. Subsidised credit may not be...