-Agencies (New Delhi)/ Business Standard States can promote ZBNF under the two farm sector schemes - Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar on Monday made a case for promoting zero-budget natural farming (ZBNF) in states, saying it would help double farmers’ income by 2022. Aayog member Ramesh Chand, who is an expert in agriculture, said that such methods could be scaled up nationally only after...

-The Hindu Besides the missing informal sector, over-estimation of output growth also offers clues Are the latest employment estimates by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) factually correct? No. They are off the mark, and confined to the economy’s organised or formal sector, accounting at best for 15% of the workforce. Is there a paradox in high output growth rates and the marginal effect on employment? Probably not, if one acknowledges that GDP...

-Livemint.com Odisha is a front-runner in women’s land ownership, much of it owing to government policies from the 1980s. But has ownership led to empowerment? Surrounded by sun-drenched paddy fields interspersed with jackfruit and banana trees, Sanakusupadu is a hamlet in Odisha’s tribal-dominated district of Rayagada. Here, almost every married woman owns land. No matter how small the holding, land documents of the 62 households in this village bear the names of the...

-TheWire.in The government has fixed the insurance reimbursements for 1,354 medical procedures under its massive new scheme. They say they won’t revise this any further. New Delhi: Despite protests from the private health sector, that the government’s reimbursements to them under the massive new health insurance scheme are too low, the government has “frozen” these rates and is unlikely to change them. “The package rates are now frozen,” said health secretary Preeti Sudan. Dinesh...

-GoIMonitor.com The villagers getting management rights under the Forest Rights Act can inspire others “First came the forest, followed by the people, and then the government. Does this chronology allow the newest entrant in the scheme to determine the relationship between the two older entities? In other words, does the new regime of community forest resource bequeath rights or is it merely a recognition of unalienable rights already vested in the communities living...