-Hindustan Times India has consistently maintained that this position is based on both an erroneous reading of the nature and intent of India’s price support mechanisms and underplays the scale of America’s support to farmers. Washington: As elections for the House of Representatives loom, a group of Republican Congressional representatives from America’s agricultural belt or with agricultural interests have stepped up the rhetoric against India’s agricultural subsidies — alleging that these distort...

-Hindustan Times Some violations of the air and water acts, the environment protection law, and the public liability insurance law that deals with providing relief to victims of accidents while handling hazardous substances in industries will be decriminalised to remove the fear of imprisonment, the ministry said. New Delhi: Violation of certain environmental regulations may soon be decriminalised, although they would attract stiffer penalties, according to public consultation papers released by the...

-Hindustan Times Over 20% of the 7.7 million jobs in India’s gig economy are classified as high-skilled jobs and 31% as low-skilled jobs. The remaining 47% are classified as medium-skilled jobs India’s gig economy is estimated to employ 7.7 million people and is set to nearly triple to 23.5 million by 2029-30, a new report by the NITI Aayog said on Monday. The report, ‘India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy’, is the first...

-Hindustan Times Nearly every year these parts of the northeast suffer deluge during monsoon months. However, IMD’s analysis of ‘rainfall variability and changes over different states’ for the period between 1989 and 2018 for Assam suggests that monthly rainfall for all monsoon months between June and September is recording a decreasing trend. The flood situation in Assam and Meghalaya continued to remain alarming due to ongoing extremely heavy rainfall in the northeastern...

-Hindustan Times The announcement came hours after 17 opposition parties decided to field former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, currently with the Trinamool Congress, as its consensus candidate, after its first three choices demurred. Droupadi Murmu, the former governor of Jharkhand, will be the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) nominee for the July 18 Presidential election, and most likely the next President of the Republic. The decision to nominate her was taken at the...