-ThePrint.in Study shows consumption of biofortified bajra also improves learning and mental abilities among school-going children. New Delhi: Biofortified pearl millet (bajra) can be a sustainable antidote for iron deficiency among adolescents in India and improve cognitive outcomes, a study published in the Journal of Nutrition claims. The study, conducted in Maharashtra among 140 economically-disadvantaged 12-16-year-olds, compared the effects of eating biofortified iron pearl millet to the conventional one. Their cognitive skills were...

-TheNewsMinute.com They enrolled for the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana in 2016-17, but allege they have not yet received payments. Around 300 farmers in Bidar threatened to take their own lives, claiming they have not been paid crop insurance for the last two years. The farmers gathered at the Gram Panchayat office in Kosam demanding the payment of crop insurance, which was supposed to be paid to them as part of the...

-howindialives.com/ Livemint.com The recent protests by the Marathas might have roots in the declining returns from farming across Maharashtra between 2006-07 and 2014-15 Falling farm incomes in rural Maharashtra might be an important factor fuelling the current spate of protests by the Marathas, who are demanding reservation in educational institutions and government jobs. The net returns from farming, or wholesale prices minus costs of production, declined for most of the major crops...

-Newsclick.in Insurance companies have already earned about Rs.16,000 crore in three seasons. The much-hyped Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) – supposed to provide insurance protection to farmers against crop losses due to natural events – has turned into a bonanza for insurance companies while farmers are angry over delays in claim settlement, rejections and paltry compensation. Launched in 2016, four full seasons have passed since and the financial transactions show earnings...

-Livemint.com The job of policy strategists is always to identify the binding constraints to growth and then try to figure out which policies will help ease them Economists of a certain vintage will remember the old development models in which rapid economic growth was held back by three key constraints. The first was the savings constraint. A poor country such as India could not save enough of its annual national income to sustain...