-Firstpost.com The bungling over the Maharashtra government's farm loan waiver scheme claimed its first victim on Monday, according to exclusive information with Firstpost. VK Gautam, Principal Secretary (Information Technology) has been sent on leave after criticism over the implementation of the scheme. Technical errors have plagued the scheme since its roll out, with farmers suffering because of glitches ranging from duplication of names in lists to incorrect Aadhaar details. VK Gautam applied for 15-day...

-National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)   This policy brief, developed by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, to address the roblem of air pollution due to crop residue burning, provides an innovative viable solution to check burning of rice residues, which is a major contributor to air pollution in the early winter months in North-West plains of India. The Academy hopes that the Central and State Governments of the affected States...

-Livemint.com The regulatory system for the seed and biotech industry should be transparent, science-based, predictable and fair For many decades, the Indian policy framework facilitated the interaction of science and innovation with entrepreneurship, which led to competition and the subsequent development of an industry structure that delivered sustainable economic benefits. The government was a major contributor to investments in seed research in India for close to three decades after independence. Policy reforms like...

-The Indian Express In Jharkhand, ABBA was first made compulsory for PDS users in Ranchi district in August 2016. By June 2017, it was mandatory in about 80 per cent of the ration shops across the state. This meant, of course, that Aadhaar itself was compulsory — no Aadhaar, no food. Recent events in Jharkhand shed some useful light on the damage done by compulsory biometric authentication in the Public Distribution...

-IANS New Delhi: Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav on Monday demanded that the Central government waive loans of all farmers across states, addressing a farmers' rally in the national capital. "We have two demands, one that the remunerative prices should be production cost plus 50 percent, which was recommended by the Swaminathan Commission and promised by Narendra Modi," Yadav said. "And second demand is a one-time waiver of all agricultural loans. Most steps...