-The Economic Times   Sports Minister Ajay Maken on Monday unveiled a revised National Sports Development Bill that retains the contentious provisions on age limits and tenures of heads of sports bodies, but introduces an exclusion clause to protect certain information while bringing sports federations within the ambit of Right to Information Act.  "We strongly feel the functioning of the sports federations should be transparent. If they oppose it then there is something...

-The Hindu   Noted Jaipur-based economist V. S. Vyas has expressed concern over “progressive diminution” of cultivated holdings which he says has led to stagnation in the yield of major crops and rendered agricultural income insufficient for farmers to make ends meet. A sharp decline was also being witnessed in per capita food production, he said. Delivering the Tarlok Singh Memorial Lecture at the University of Hyderabad over the weekend, Professor Vyas said...

Prices increase six times this kharif forcing farmers to spend an additional Rs. 1,000 crore Increase in the prices of all fertilizers except urea six times during the current kharif season has burdened the farming community in the State by about Rs. 1,000 crore additionally. It is likely to add to the production cost heavily coupled with the increase in other input costs like seed, labour charges, diesel and pesticides. Scanty rainfall...

The popular outrage over the official definition of poverty at abysmally low levels of daily income, of Rs 26 in rural areas and Rs 32 in urban areas, assumes the state will deny basic services to a household whose income is above the figure. This is totally erroneous. There is no mechanism in the hands of the government to ascertain income or expenditure to identify the 'poor' on the ground. The...

-Live Mint   The poor remain poor because they lack resources. And the formal finance sector does not want to lend them because they are too poor, costs are high and they hardly have anything to offer as collateral. That is, they are trapped in the vicious circle of poverty. This was so until the arrival of microfinance—successfully demonstrated by the Bangladesh model that the poor are “good” borrowers. It was held...