-The Hindu Plastic recyclers protecting margins by paying less for waste plastic Bengaluru: As the nation ushered in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on July 1, no one would have imagined that it might have adverse consequences for the environment. But with the tax rate on recycled plastic shooting up from 5.5% to 18% post-GST, ragpicking as a livelihood seems to be turning unviable, with attendant impact on the urban environment. Take...

-Business Standard Says over Rs 32,000-crore released to insurers from 2011-16 without verification of beneficiaries The crop insurance continues to be a problematic area despite the Centre launching the much-touted Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) from Kharif 2016 replacing two old schemes with no or marginal increase in coverage of non-loanee farmers, lower sum insured as compared to scale of finance and delayed claim settlement which defeated the very purpose of...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: India’s flagship national agricultural insurance programme — Pradhan Mantri Fazal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) — is found seriously wanting in its implementation at ground level, New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said on Friday. “PMFBY is a classic case of poor implementation of a good scheme,” said Chandra Bhushan, CSE deputy director, at a meeting here. This is because at the State level, PMFBY vision...

-The Hindu Business Line Agri-tech firms or farmer producer companies enjoy no benefits under GST. This will hit entrepreneurial spirit in the sector In 1991, India saw an LPG blast — liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation that changed the face of the country permanently. After 25 years from 1991, a fortnight ago, we experienced another revolutionary reform — GST with the promise of “One country-One tax”. Like any other person, I started reading...

-The Indian Express Punjab’s unique cattle breeding-cum-milk sale dairying model is under threat from gau rakshak activism and the Centre’s new animal trading rules. Randhawa and Gill are amongst Punjab’s many dairy farmers who have made the state into a major supplier of not just milk, but also milch animals. Gurdaspur (Punjab): “When there’s no land in our name, how would we now buy or sell cattle? Are they saying we...