-Business Standard This policy involves providing products and services such as electricity and fertilisers at below-market prices New Delhi: While much of public discourse in India has tended to focus on expanding the current subsidy regime to help the poor, Vijay Joshi, economist at Oxford University, advocates shifting to a universal basic income, replacing all government subsidies with a single Cash transfer to all citizens, providing them with a basic income guarantee. At...

-The Times of India Bhopal: Reeling under drought sometime back, farmers in as many as 13 districts of the state are now bearing the brunt of floods and will have to resort to re-sowing of kharif crops. The farmers are now waiting for overcast sky to clear up so that the waterlogged fields become accessible for re-sowing. Before the deluge, the sowing was already late and kharif crops could be sowed only...

-The Hindu Business Line Acreage under cotton, oilseed cultivation still low but likely to improve New Delhi: With surplus rain recorded between June 30 and July 6, sowing of rice and pulses picked up pace with the total acreage under the two crops, since the beginning of June, exceeding last year’s levels for the same period. The sharp decline in acreage under cotton and oilseeds, however, resulted in lower acreage under all kharif...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Free health-care services during childbirth remain a pipe dream for most of India's poor, whether it relates to diagnostic tests, medicines, transport or even food, despite the Union health ministry launching a "free entitlements" programme five years ago. The families of most women who seek childbirth in government hospitals are forced to pay for supposedly "free" services, at times experiencing catastrophic expenditures likely to accentuate their poverty, two...

-The Indian Express This has been brought about mainly by declining price realisations in basmati paddy and Bt cotton, the two crops profitable enough to make it worthwhile for farmers to expand acreages. Jalandhar: Lease rentals on farmlands in Punjab — India’s granary state — have collapsed, providing the clearest indication of an agricultural downturn and farmers choosing to go back to growing parmal paddy in place of high-risk basmati and cotton...