-The Hindu Focus on short-duration varieties, crop insurance plan Thiruvananthapuram (Andhra Pradesh): With the southwest monsoon playing truant, the government is working on a disaster management plan to help farmers tide over the possibility of crop failure and the consequent loss. The Department of Agriculture is focussing its efforts on the paddy sector, likely to be the worst affected by a poor monsoon. "With the initial monsoon spell tapering off, transplanting paddy shoots...

-Newsclick.in Since being installed in government the BJP's ministers have announced a slew of measures to usher in "better days". True to this pattern, the new government's health minister - Dr.Harsh Vardhan - has articulated a number of priorities in the health sector. None of them come as a surprise as they are true to the BJP's core ideology of further promoting the neoliberal agenda of the previous UPA government. What Dr.Harsh...

-The Times of India   NEW DELHI: British Medical Journal (BMJ) has announced the launch of a campaign against corruption in medicine, which will begin with its focus on India. The journal urged people to join its international fight back against kickbacks. The ​editorial in BMJ regarding the campaign stated that corruption in healthcare was a complex challenge that medical professionals have failed to deal with, either by choosing to enrich themselves,...

-Economic and Political Weekly     Sustained and focused efforts have to be made by the Tamil Nadu state government to provide relief and rehabilitation to the drought affected people of the state. S Rajendran (myrajendran@gmail.com) is with the Department of Economics, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu. Due to the failure of the north-east monsoon in December 2013, Tamil Nadu is witnessing drought like conditions this year, leading to poor agricultural productivity, rural distress,...

-Institute of Economic Growth This study tries to assess the vulnerability to climate change of farmers in Uttar Pradesh (UP), a state in India. The study chose UP for its importance in India's food and nutrition security programme and its high sensitivity to climate change. It uses 17 environmental and socio-economic factors to see which districts of UP are the most vulnerable to climate change, and attempts to identify the factors...