-The Indian Express All such investments will go a long way to augment farmers’ incomes in a sustainable manner. Else, I am afraid, much of the talk in the Union budget for agri-reforms will remain mere rhetoric. Although the Union budget is basically an accounting exercise of revenues and expenditures for the coming year, economy-watchers anxiously wait for the finance minister to announce major economic reforms. In that sense, the budget of...

-The Indian Express Centre, Tripura, and Mizoram have signed an agreement with the Bru/Reang community that promises to end their 23-year-old internal displacement crisis. How did the deal come about, and what happens now? Agartala: Twenty-three years after ethnic clashes in Mizoram forced 37,000 people of the Bru (or Reang) community to flee their homes to neighbouring Tripura, an agreement has been signed to allow them to remain permanently in the latter...

-The Hindu The central bank’s shift of focus from financial stability to inflation targeting could have led to regulatory infirmity Inflation is back in the news and attention has willy-nilly turned on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This would lead us to recognise what the central bank is mandated to do and assess how much of its objective it actually achieves. The establishment of some of the world’s oldest central banks was...

-The Tribune Miscreants spread rumours on social media that it will hit Punjab too Jalandhar: As swarms of locusts have descended in Rajasthan and attacked crops, farmers in Punjab are tensed that their crops would also be damaged if they reach the state. Agriculture Department officials said today that the situation in that state was leading to rumours in Punjab, which were being spread through social media. Hence, the department had appealed to...

-World Meteorological Organisation The year 2019 was the second warmest year on record after 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s consolidated analysis of leading international datasets. Average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) periods were the highest on record. Since the 1980s each decade has been warmer than the previous one. This trend is expected to continue because of record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Averaged across...