-Hindustan Times The irregularities in Doing Business reports had affected four countries: China; Saudi Arabia; United Arab Emirates; and Azerbaijan. World Bank Group has decided to discontinue ‘Doing Business’ reports that used to assess investment climate in countries after data irregularities were found in 2018 and 2020, reported news agency Reuters. In August 2020, World Bank paused the publication of Doing Business reports following a number of irregularities were reported regarding changes...

-The Hindu Business Line Apart from endemic policy concerns, the promotion of palm oil has downsides The edible oilseed production has occupied centre-stage in the discourse on Indian agriculture after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent announcement of the ₹11,040-crore National Mission on Edible Oil-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP), to have self-sufficiency in edible oils, particularly palm oil. There are two reasons for this announcement. First, the recent skyrocketing of edible oil prices has irked the...

-The Hindu The Agriculture Ministry signed agreements on Tuesday with Reliance’s Jio Platforms, ITC, Cisco, NCDEX e-Markets and Ninjacart to develop agritech solutions using its National Farmers Database which includes information of 5.5 crore farmers. Microsoft, Amazon and Patanjali are among the companies that signed agreements for similar pilot projects earlier this year. This is part of an effort to modernise the agriculture sector by infusing new technologies so that farmers can...

-The Hindu Data also show that a majority of the farmers were unaware of the Minimum Support Price regime Between 2013 and 2019, the share of agricultural households (HHs) that sold their produce in APMC mandis reduced sharply, while those that sold their produce to private traders increased significantly. Data show that a majority of the farmers were unaware of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) programme and procurement agencies. Among those who...

-The Hindu The post-COVID-19 situation is complex and the ‘where we left it’ approach will not do for any stage of school education As children return to the classroom after an unprecedentedly long gap, many among their teachers realise that teaching will be tougher. And there are others who assume that it will be business as usual. In fact, they have already started teaching from the point ‘where we left it’, meaning...