-The Hindu While consumers will be glad to see their fuel bills slashed by the advent of a favourable rate structure under the GST, State governments will have to contend with an erosion in tax revenue. At the time of writing, petrol was retailing at Rs.82.48/litre in Mumbai, roughly 62% more than the Rs.50.8/litre Pakistanis shell out for a tank of gas. This is despite the fact that crude oil prices are...

-Livemint.com China’s example shows the benefits of the rural workforce shifting from the farm to the non-farm sector The government announced its ambitious dream of doubling farmers’ income by 2022-23 in 2015-16. Incomes would have to grow annually by 10.4% to double in seven years. The data on growth rates of farm income given by NITI Aayog in its policy paper on doubling farmers’ income shows that the real income of farmers has...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Union health ministry has banned the sale of formulations with oxytocin through retail chemists and restricted domestic manufacture to public sector companies amid concerns about the clandestine manufacture and sale of the drug, believed to be misused in the dairy sector. The new rules come into effect from July 1. The government has also banned the import of oxytocin and its formulations, but public and private sector...

-The Times of India PATIALA: In a move aimed at preventing ‘desertification’ of Punjab by saving more than 24 lakh million litres of water in just five days, the state government has issued a notification to delay the paddy sowing by another five days. The five-day delay would be saving enough water to meet all requirements of the state (including domestic and industrial) for over one and a half years. The notification has...

-Livemint.com For the first time during the tenure of the present government, overall inflation of food articles is negative, implying a decline in prices Last week the India Meteorological Department (IMD) presented its first forecast for the monsoon this year. The forecast at 97% of the long period average (LPA) suggested yet a third year of normal monsoon rains, following 2016 and 2017. This should have ideally brought cheer to farmers struggling...