-Deccan Herald New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra on Monday said the government is likely to scrap public distribution scheme (PDS) system and transfer money directly to the accounts of poor beneficiaries after getting encouraging results from Haryana and Puducherry. Modi stated this during his Monday's informal discussion with BJP MPs from Delhi, J-K, Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. According to a press statement issued on the outcome of interaction with...

-Livemint.com Unlike the dhoti-clad, topi-wearing quintessential ‘kisan’, the new Indian farmer is vocal and tech-savvy New Delhi: In the winter of 1988 when the feisty farmer leader from Uttar Pradesh, Mahendra Singh Tikait, laid siege to Delhi with thousands of cultivators and their cattle literally creating a mess of the boat club lawns, agriculture’s share in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was about 30%. About three decades later, the farm sector’s share in...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Demonetisation and the subsequent push for digitisation has escalated risks relating to cyber crime and India needs to urgently upgrade its defences by setting up a cyber security commission on the lines of the Atomic Energy and Space Commissions, according to an IIT Kanpur study shared with Parliament's committee on finance. Noting that the government has initiated a number of programmes to enhance the participation of...

-Business Standard Govt told to be consistent on capital infusion criteria The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has slammed the managements and statutory auditors of 12 public sector banks (PSBs) for overstating their net profit, by underestimating non-performing assets (NPAs) and under-providing for these bad assets during 2016-17. Also, there were differences in the classification of and provisioning for assets between five banks and the Reserve Bank (RBI) but as the...

-Livemint.com 2016 recorded the lowest suicides in the farm sector in over two decades, shows data shared by agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh New Delhi: There is little doubt that 2016 was replete with positive data on agriculture sector—a normal monsoon, record production of grains and perishables, and a rebound in the farm sector growth after consecutive years of drought-induced dismal performance. However, this positive data failed to lift farmers’ sentiment because...