-Networkideas.org  The International Monetary Fund has announced a fresh issue of $650 billion Special Drawing Rights in August which would be distributed among member countries in proportion to their IMF quotas. This amount is less than what had been demanded by many, which was a trillion dollars, but it does represent a small temporary comfort for the heavily indebted third world countries. Almost all of it will go into the pockets of...

-Hindustan Times The ex gratia will also be given to kin of Covid-19 victims who were involved in relief operations or associated with “preparedness activities”, the court was told. The Central government on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court that families of those who died of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) will receive an ex gratia of ₹50,000 from the state disaster response fund (SDRF). The ex gratia will also be given to kin of...

-The Hindu Increase in pulses production, especially toor dal crop The summer kharif season is likely to produce a record paddy harvest this year, pushing the country’s foodgrain production for the season to an all time high of 15 crore tonnes, according to first advance estimates from the Agriculture Ministry. However, oilseed production is marginally lower than last year, with both groundnut and soyabean harvests slightly, which could be bad news for soaring...

-Down to Earth We must get out of ‘beyond disaster response’ mode in the Sundarbans and take urgent action to save it The world seems to pay attention to the Sundarbans only when catastrophe hits. In the aftermath of both supercyclones Amphan and Yaas that ravaged the Sundarbans, non-profits, celebrities, clubs and citizens had organised several crowd funding initiatives to get the financial support to distribute relief materials to the cyclone victims. It...

-IDROnline.org While it claims to be a demand-based scheme with an elastic budget, NREGA’s failure to support the rural economy in 2021 indicates otherwise. A comparison of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) demand and supply of work between the first quarter of financial year (FY) 2020, when the national lockdown was in place and the first quarter of FY 2021 when the second wave was at its peak offers...