-Hindustan Times It’s a paradoxical fact. Families become smaller as better nutrition, vaccination and healthcare ensure couples lose fewer children to malnutrition and infections, such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, sepsis and tuberculosis India’s most comprehensive report card on health released earlier this year shows India’s total fertility rate (TFR) has dropped from an average of 2.7 children per women in 2006 to 2.2 a decade later. Around two in three states that are...

-The Times of India BENGALURU: Notwithstanding the consecutive years of drought over the past three years, Karnataka farmers earned 38% in 2015-16 from sale of agri-commodities through the e-trading interface Unified Market Platform (UMP), according to a Niti Aayog report. The income is expected to double in 2016-17 with many more markets coming under UMP, said a senior agriculture marketing official. UMP, an initiative of the Rashtriya e-Market Services Ltd (ReMS), is...

-The Hindu Business Line Using just wholesale price index as deflator could distort real GDP. Price indices for all inputs and outputs would work better Prior to the introduction of the all-India Consumer Price Index, popularly known as CPI combined (rural plus urban), the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) was the most useful price index in India. It measured the weekly rhythm of price movement in the country. Since 2009, WPI has been computed...

-Business Standard Acreage of these crops is likely to fall as prices drop below MSP in mandis Mumbai: Farmers are shifting from oilseeds and pulses to more remunerative crops like cotton and maize this kharif season. The area under oilseeds and pulses is likely to decline with prices ruling below minimum support prices in many mandis. Farmers are agitating because their produce is not being lifted by government agencies and traders are also...

-The Hindu Fundamental problems of crop and regional bias of MSP policy, govt. procurement and access to institutional credit need to be addressed. Agricultural distress is often viewed as a short-term phenomenon in which farmers look for support from various quarters on account of being unable to get a gainful return due to price crash, poor marketing facilities, rising credit burden, increasing cost of inputs and frequent occurrence of natural calamities. A...