-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...

-Capital Market 14 Crore Soil Health Cards to be Issued in Three Years; Credit Support of Rs. 8 Lakh Crore to Agriculture During 2014-15 Targeted "Finance to 5 lakh joint farming groups of Bhoomi Heen Kisan through NABARD in the current financial year", said Shri Radha Mohan Singh, Agriculture Minister, while inaugurating the National Rabi Conference. Minister said that, a very large number of landless farmers are unable to provide land title...

-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...

-Live Mint Better irrigation systems and use of more fertilizers could narrow the gap between production and productivity Dig deeper into Indian agriculture's low productivity and many states producing higher quantities of rice are far from the most productive. On the one hand, six of the top 10 rice producing states rank 10th or worse when it comes to how efficient they are in producing rice. Their yields per hectare are lower than...

In the midst of irregular monsoons affecting agriculture, a new report shows stagnation in the state of irrigation infrastructure. The recent report entitled Infrastructure Statistics 2014 (Third Issue) by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has provided information that despite the rise in expenditure on irrigation infrastructure, there has been no substantial improvement in the gross irrigation potential utilized*. Athough expenditure on irrigation has increased from Rs. 36561.64 crores...