-The Indian Express On agriculture, three years into the Modi government, while many steps have been taken to realise promises made in 2014, others have fallen by the wayside With the Modi government completing three years in office, it is time to assess its performance in various sectors. We focus here on agriculture. Without robust growth in agriculture, “sabka saath, sabka vikas” will remain an empty slogan. There are two ways to evaluate...

-Frontline Low prices following a bumper crop and the State government’s inability to procure much of the yield leave tur farmers in Maharashtra in a quandary. DROUGHT or abundance, farmers seem to be perpetually doomed in Maharashtra. The most recent crisis unfolding in the agrarian segment is the crashing prices of pulses, particularly tur dal, and the inability of the State government to procure the entire crop. Adding to the problem...

-The Indian Express The total agricultural land has also dipped by 1.18 per cent to 1.97 crore hectares of land. Mumbai: Even as clamour for farm loan waiver grows to afford temporary relief to farmers amid volatility in commodity prices and poor returns from farm produce, the state is facing a problem of increased fragmentation of agricultural land. Smaller plots not just bring down agricultural productivity, but also affects farmers’ economies...

-The Hindu The discourse must move beyond a top-down approach to listen to the people and formulate best insurance practices Much ink has been spilled in documenting the inadequacy of budgetary allocations for public health insurance, specifically for the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the world’s largest publicly-funded health insurance (PFHI) scheme. Though the 2017-18 budget allocation has marginally increased from last year’s revised estimates, it has declined relative to last year’s...

-The Indian Express Responding to specific queries on the issue, Bhupendra Singh, NPPA chairman, told The Indian Express that “examination of hospital records is in process”. AFTER the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) in February ordered a cap on the prices of coronary stents and directed hospitals to issue separate bills specifying their cost, the drug pricing watchdog has started receiving consumer complaints against hospitals which are allegedly hiking the prices...